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October 24, 2011
The Clinton On Iraq

The Clinton says:

"No one should miscalculate America's resolve and commitment to helping support the Iraqi democracy. We have paid too high a price to give the Iraqis this chance. And I hope that Iran and no one else miscalculates that."

It is not astonishing that Clinton falls for sunk cost fallacy, she is a lawyer after all, but can't she even understand the basics of the situation in Iraq?

A democratic Iraq is good for Iran.

Iraq's democratically elected government just kicked out the U.S. military from its launching position for an attack on Iran. Iran has no interest to change that. Any elected government in Iraq, voted in by the Shia majority, will likely take the same stance. A democratic Iraq is better for Iran than for the U.S.

That's what the U.S. is supporting? I do not believe that for even a minute. I am sure it would rather have Saddam Hussein back.

Posted by b on October 24, 2011 at 16:17 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Maybe Ahmadinejad is one of their private consultants. It looks like they eventually took his advice…..or did they? Now….say….what would happen if after withdrawal a skirmish develops between Iran and Iraq? Sure, it’s highly unlikely from an organic standpoint, since they’re both Shia, but we’re not talking about organics here. Such an event would be the cause needed to finally go after Iran. Will Iran fall for it? Will they be lured? Will they have a choice? Time will tell.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1296723.php/US_withdrawal_only_solution_for_Iraqs_dilemma_says_Ahmadinejad

The only solution to end the dilemma in Iraq was to withdraw the United States forces from Iraq and leave all state affairs to the Iraqi government, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday.
Ahmadinejad told visiting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari that ‘end of occupation’ was the only way to return security and stability to Iraq.

Note that the article is dated April 26, 2007.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Oct 24 2011 17:15 utc | 1

I don’t think the US is holding off on attacking Iran for want of a plausible excuse. They would happily use an implausible one if they thought they could win easily. They are holding off because the consequences of an attack would be grim.
At any rate, a border skirmish, if used as an excuse would require the Iraqi government to request outside help. Not likely, even if a skirmish happened.
In the near future, you will likely see Iranian “trainers” in Iraq helping to rebuild it’s security forces. The US will have no choice but to swallow that indignity.
After a few years, we will see how the Iraq invasion REALLY has devastated US interests (as perceived by the MIC and the Israel partisans) At such point Iraq will be producing more and more oil as Saudi fields start to decline. This will have three effects of enormous consequence:
1) International oil companies will find that they need to be on better terms with Iran in order to get the best contracts in Iraq, and…
2) Even more importantly, Iraq becomes the swing oil producer able to control prices. And…
3) A wealthy Iraq will be able to compete for influence with a Saudi Arabia in decline. IE, all the pro Saudi Arab press and politicians will suddenly start to change their tune when they recognize their meal tickets come from elsewhere.
The brilliance of it is that US officials will have no choice but to paint a smile on their faces speak well of Iraqi democracy.

Posted by: Lysander | Oct 24 2011 17:30 utc | 2

Got to wonder bout all the complainers in Washington. Predictable, but they were sure on board when;
1) Immediately after Chalabi failed to gather a constituency post invasion, the occupation allowed the exiled Iranian Quds Force funded SCIRI to return to Iraq and form the nucleus of the new Iraqi government, intelligence service, and security forces.
2) Facilitated writing a new constitution that weighed heavily in favor ethnic demographic representation.
3) Did everything they could to exercise and support the notorious “Shiite option”.
4) Stood idly by (at best) or participated covertly (at worst) (ali-askai mosque, operation forward together) in the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad that sent 4 million Sunni’s into permanent exile, and shattered the future chances of Sunni political representation.
5) Allowed the Maliki Shiite government to ban hundreds of legitimate Sunni candidates from participating in elections.
6) Signed a binding SOFA agreement with the Shiite government outlining the terms of total U.S. disengagement from Iraq.
Sounds to me like they got everything they asked for, signed sealed and delivered by their “war president” hero G.W Bush – who confidently announced to the world “when the Iraqi government asks us to leave we will.”

Posted by: anna missed | Oct 24 2011 18:02 utc | 3

@3, it just doesn’t add up. There’s something we’re missing here….and it’s not anna. Cheney and Rumsfeld are not idiots. They didn’t support going to Baghdad under Bush Sr. for these very reasons, yet they did with Junior. Why? What changed? I don’t want to hear it was hubris. There had to be a highly rational justification for it, and we’re not privy to the inside information. What that is, I’m not sure of at this point, although we know now it doesn’t seem likely it was the oil. Perhaps it was denominating oil transactions in something other than the dollar as Saddam threatened to do. Afterall, Finance rules the day, not the Oil Companies, as we all now know for certain.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Oct 24 2011 18:16 utc | 4

Perhaps it was a lot of pressure on Bush Jr. to ‘finish the job’?

Posted by: dh | Oct 24 2011 18:30 utc | 5

@5, here’s Cheney in ’94. Since we know Junior was just window dressing and his foreign policy determined for him with Cheney and Rumsfeld as the point men, something obviously gave. What was that something?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Oct 24 2011 19:28 utc | 6

Well somebody pressured Cheney to ‘finish the job’. PNAC? Drumbeating editorials? Didn’t Wesley Clark say something about a plan being developed 10 days after 911? I don’t remember the timeline but there was a big push to link Saddam to 911. Chalabi/Wolfowitz/Perle et al said it would be over in a few weeks. Rumsfeld said it wouldn’t take a a huge force.

Posted by: dh | Oct 24 2011 19:57 utc | 7

@7, we know they didn’t believe their own lies, so, considering that Lysander’s claim that they don’t need excuses to invade, why did they go in aterall, and why did they concoct a ridiculous cover story as rationale? When I say they, I obviously mean more than just Cheney and Rumsfeld, and more than just the Bush Administration. There must be more to this.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Oct 24 2011 20:08 utc | 8

@4
The only plausible explanation comes from former foreign policy adviser to Cheney, David Wurmser – where in his book on Saddam, outlines how a Shiite centric overthrow of Saddam would turn out beneficial to U.S. interests. Supposedly, this would return Shiite clerical power away from Qom and return it to its (former) traditional seat in Najaf, whereby the new free market democracy in Iraq would flourish under the watchful eye of “quietist” clergy (Sistani) and undermine the “activist” clerical position in Iran through economic and civil liberties comparison.
Of course there’s nothing like this happening in Iraq. In fact quite the opposite considering that Sadr himself has been studying under the cleric (in Iran) that designed the Iranian activist model and has been agitating that Iraq adopt the Iranian model (evidenced through clerical interventions during the last elections and post election maneuvering). So I guess we’ll have to wait until Sistani finally kicks the bucket – which will probably be about the time Sadr achieves ayatollah.

Posted by: anna missed | Oct 24 2011 20:29 utc | 9

It’s beyond my payscale I’m afraid. I suppose 911 gave them the excuse they needed whoever they are.

Posted by: dh | Oct 24 2011 20:31 utc | 10

ah history …
all from Wikipedia
“Various dates are considered the end of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia:
25 June 1991, when Croatia and Slovenia declared independence
8 September 1991, following a referendum the Republic of Macedonia declared independence
8 October 1991, when the 9 July moratorium on Slovenian and Croatian secession was ended and Croatia restated its independence in Croatian Parliament (that day is celebrated as Independence Day in Croatia)
15 January 1992, when Slovenia and Croatia were internationally recognized by most European countries
6 April 1992, full recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s independence by the U.S. and most European countries
28 April 1992, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is formed
November 1995, Dayton Agreement is signed by leaders of FR Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia”
Color revolutions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution
Colour revolutions is a term that was widely used by the media to describe related movements that developed in several societies in the CIS (former USSR) and Balkan states during the early 2000s.
“The Iraq War (or War in Iraq) began on March 20, 2003[48][49] with the invasion of Iraq by the United States under the administration of President George W. Bush and the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Tony Blair.[50] The war is also referred to as the Occupation of Iraq, the Second Gulf War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom by the US military.”
Now all those troops that withdraw from Iraq – where will they go. Africa?
Basically US-Americans are defrauded of the peace dividend
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_dividend

Posted by: somebody | Oct 24 2011 20:34 utc | 11

“L’aventure irakienne prend donc fin pour Washington, mais, on l’oublie trop, pas pour les Irakiens qui continueront à en payer le prix.
Car les Etats-Unis laissent derrière eux un pays dévasté. Des centaines de milliers d’Irakiens ont été tués (entre 100 000 et 500 000 selon les évaluations), entre 1 et 2 millions ont fui à l’étranger, notamment en Syrie et en Jordanie (parmi eux, nombre de chrétiens dont les médias français se désolent régulièrement qu’ils soient chassés du Proche-Orient). Mais aussi un Etat détruit, un pays fractionné, des divisions profondes entre chiites et sunnites, un pouvoir autoritaire (aussi bien à Bagdad qu’à Erbil, capitale du Kurdistan), un usage banalisé de la torture, des arrestations arbitraires, etc. Reconstruire un Etat et une société nécessitera des décennies et il est juste qu’Amnesty International ait demandé l’inculpation de l’ancien président George W. Bush, même si ce n’est que pour sa responsabilité dans les actes de torture. Plus que d’autres, M. Bush mériterait un procès devant la Cour pénale internationale, mais nous savons que celui-ci n’aura jamais lieu : on ne juge devant cette cour que des chefs d’Etat africains.”
http://blog.mondediplo.net/2011-10-24-Liberation-ambigue-en-Libye

Posted by: somebody | Oct 24 2011 21:00 utc | 12

@ Comments 3&4
It is tempting to think that, since the outcome was so poor and “predictably” so, from the POV of US policy makers, that there must have been some clever diabolical sub-plan that we don’t know about. But I think it is much simpler. Yes, they knew a Shiite Iraq would help Iran. But since they had every intention of taking Iran out next, (or thought it would collapse by magic next to a ‘democratic’ Iraq) they did not care. Or they assumed the influence of their occupying army would trump the influence of the Iranian clergy.
I think that is most likely how they saw it in 2002-2004. Once the Sunni insurgency got into full swing, however, they needed to keep the Shiites on board or else face a politically and militarily untenable nation-wide insurgency. The cost of their cooperation was that they would be left in charge of Iraq. Keep in mind that the first US installed government was that of the Anti-Iranian, Iyad Alawi. They intended to solidify his reign through a “Caucus of the great and the good,” not any kind of election. Sistani called for mass demonstrations demanding elections, and the US, hoisted on its own democratic petard, had to relent. The rest, as they say, is history.

Posted by: Lysander | Oct 24 2011 21:19 utc | 13

Morocco, I’m a bit confused by your wondering. Maybe it’s that I just re-read Max Boot’s book about the glory of small invasions, but it’s not hard to see that the neocons simply believed their own rhetoric and ideals (not their own excuses, mind you). They simply believed they could remake the world into whatever they wanted, and at low cost to boot. The world in 2003 looked far bolder than in 1991, it looked richer and more pro-American. They believed in the power of American wealth, the power of advanced military (Yugoslavia as a casualty-free war), the power of their own media (hell, they had turned GW Bush from a dufus into a president by force of will), and of course the power of an opportunity (if I had a “free invasion” card, I would probably have used it on the country holding massive oil reserves, too).

Posted by: Bill | Oct 24 2011 21:28 utc | 14

This is what we get for taking out Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a regime that’s friendly to Iran. And this should be enough evidence to convince most of us that we were destined from the get-go to lose this godawful war in Iraq. Anyone who thinks otherwise has been smoking on a pipe full of hopium or is a well-paid propagandist for the Pentagon.

Posted by: Cynthia | Oct 24 2011 22:28 utc | 15

@15, that’s not why I opposed the invasion and occupation.

Posted by: Morocco Bama | Oct 25 2011 0:08 utc | 16

Oded Yinon.

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 25 2011 1:39 utc | 17

Shrillary has no choice but to continue the pretense that the US invaded Iraq to bring democracy to the oppressed Iraqis (if there were any Iraqis left when the US had finished slaughtering and dispossessing them, destroying their infrastructure and dismantling all the systems of government – for the Jews).
Iraq was destroyed because Saddam was giving moral and direct financial support to the Palestinian victims of Israel’s Piece Process.
When the Jews destroyed Palestinian colleges, Saddam paid for Palestinian students to study elsewhere.
When Jews demolished Palestinian homes, Saddam sent them money to rebuild and/or relocate.
When the Jews destroyed public infrastructure, such as medical clinics, administrative offices and the premises of charitable institutions, Saddam did his best to compensate them and restore their ability to function.
The War on Terror is a war on Islam. The Jews want to portray Moslems as backward and uncivilised primitives devoid of the ability to appreciate, or even recognise, the trappings of civilisation.
Anyone who doubts this need only look at the targets of Israel’s own attacks on Lebanon in ’06 and Gaza in ’08. Both attacks targeted public infrastructure necessary to civilised life, together with the wholesale destruction of domestic accommodation – in order to gloat about Moslems living in squalor. It’s no coincidence that America’s wars for the Jews follow the same pattern.
The US, under Neocon influence, is the tool for the destruction of Islam. Iraq was unlucky enough to be the softest available target, having been weakened by the Iran-Iraq war and then further diminished by sanctions and embargos.
Zionist Jews are not nice people.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 25 2011 2:37 utc | 18

Basically, the US is not afraid of growing it’s own enemies to fight them
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/
Hoarsewhisperer your statement is silly. Dick Cheney and George W. Bush are Methodists, Donald Rumsfeld is Presbyterian, Francis Fukuyama has a Congregational Church background and Irving Kristol used to be a Trotskyist communist with a Jewish background.
Just googled the Irving Kristol to check, his Wikipedia entry actually is quite fun, as Trotsky certainly was a Marxist, ie communist:
“He received his B.A. from the City College of New York in 1940, where he majored in history and was part of a small but vocal Trotskyist anti communist group who eventually became the New York Intellectuals.”

Posted by: somebody | Oct 25 2011 6:15 utc | 19

Morocco
I’ve held the view for quite some time now that the Bush administration quite simply didn’t know, in the sense of overarching grand strategy, why it invaded Iraq.
One can dredge up any number of subordinate rationalisations of varying plausibility -oil, domestic politics, convenience, pathology, metastasizing bureaucratic cancer in the defence-security-foreign policy complex, misdirection, re-masculation – but these are only butresses to a decision that was made for reasons that the decision makers have never been able to articulate into a rational strategic schema, because none such ever existed.

Posted by: dan | Oct 25 2011 10:02 utc | 20

Anonymous @17 is probably right with regards to the big plan behind it though there are other factors involved too.
Those who don’t know about Oded Yinon read: A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties

Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization.

Posted by: b | Oct 25 2011 12:42 utc | 21

MB, I share your doubts
there’s a lot of secret diplomacy going around in the ME, Russia included (see how its attitude towards Iran continuously shifts)
sometimes I have a feeling there are secret agerements between the Us and Iran: we musn’t forget the Iran-Contra affair, so risky for all those involved, but that succeeded in ousting Carter;
and peaks of anti-iranian rhetoric may well be used to bettere disguise such agreements;
other times I feel Iran is doomed, that sooner or later, rationally or not, counterproductively or not, Israel (or rather, Us / France / etc in Israel’s name) will go for him
maybe both feelings are true: the Us doesn’t mind destroying former allies and friends

Posted by: claudio | Oct 25 2011 15:22 utc | 22

Clinton said what she had to say. There’s no other signficance.
The handing over of power in Iraq to pro-Iranians was a consequence of the results of the elections. Bush wanted elections, quite rightly. But but the result was not what he wanted.
Me, I am in favour of the expression of popular opinion, whatever the result. If the result is islamist, I would ask why it is that opinion goes in that direction, and the answer is of course, western pressure on Islamic societies, militarily or socially. Condemn them in any way. A product of the old hatred of Islam.

Posted by: Alexno | Oct 25 2011 21:08 utc | 23

somebody @ 19.
“Hoarsewhisperer your statement is silly. Dick Cheney and George W. Bush are Methodists, Donald Rumsfeld is Presbyterian, Francis Fukuyama has a Congregational Church background and Irving Kristol used to be a Trotskyist communist with a Jewish background.”
I won’t claim to hate having to point this out to you, somebody, but neocons are defined by who they’re happy to sell out to (for money), not by their religion.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 26 2011 2:53 utc | 24

@Alexno – Bush wanted elections, quite rightly.
Utter nonsense. Bush wanted to install a U.S. friendly dictatorship (the “governing council”(. It was Ajatollah Sistani who brought 100,000nds into the streets to get elections. Sistani won, the U.S had to do so.

Posted by: b | Oct 26 2011 17:35 utc | 25

re b 25
You are right in the detail. Bush didn’t initially want elections. He was forced to have them.

Posted by: Alexno | Oct 26 2011 21:36 utc | 26

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