Predictions of a better Middle East have evaporated 3 years after invasion

[RedEarth]

WASHINGTON - Three years after the United States invaded Iraq in pursuit of a freer, more stable Middle East, the country's deepening ethnic conflict is spreading tension across Iraq's borders, fueling terrorism and nurturing gloom about the future.

President Bush cited Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and ties to international terrorism - neither of which turned out to exist - when he ordered a pre-emptive war that began March 19, 2003. He predicted payoffs for the wider Middle East: spreading democracy, deterred enemies, more secure oil flows, a less hostile environment for Israel. None of that has happened, at least not yet.

Instead, said officials and analysts in the United States, Arab countries, Israel and Europe, the invasion has produced a vortex of unintended consequences.

Militancy is on the rise. Terrorists are using Iraq as a training base and potential launch pad for attacks elsewhere, according to U.S. officials and documents. Democratic reform remains largely stymied.

"The region is pushed further toward extremism," said Mohamed el Sayed Said, the deputy director of the Cairo-based Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "The Bush administration was warned that it's moving into an area of shifting sand. ... This is a very complex region with legacies of sectarian violence and religious strife."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/14115859.htm

[peacebird]

1. "The Bush administration was warned"

Even his own father knew better than to go into Baghdad.

THe biggest problem is that now the it is apparent to masses what a clusterfuck Iraq is - bush will need to attack Iran as a diversion, to regain his war-footing...

[acmavm]

2. That there is part of the problem. He agreed to front for the neos because

he thought for sure that he would get credit for doing something that Poopy never did, invading and occupying Iraq. What an idiot.

Babs and Poopy must be so proud of their little boy. Most hated man on the planet, not to mention someone so stupid he has to wear a wire when speaking in public.

He looks pretty bad lately.

[cliss]

3. Can you imagine how they must be feeling?

As Bush appears on TV, they sit together in the family room, holding hands. Tears well up in Mom's eyes, as she looks at her son. He looks rugged, worn out. He's fighting a losing battle, like a person who decides to climb Mt. Everest in swim shorts.

George H.W. and Barbara look at each other. There are no words. They just see pain in each others' eyes. They scour their conscience, to see what went wrong, and where. That's too painful, so they both lash out at the "stupid public", and "hateful unwashed masses".

The phone calls are coming in. Lots of old family friends, like James Baker and other cronies. They see what's coming down the road. They want to know what can be done. They're more than concerned, they feel that the entire country is at stake right now. In fact, they're pissed that the whole goddamned situation is spiraling out of control with Junior at the wheel.

Can you do something, George H.W? The Father ends the phone call quickly. He knows Junior won't talk to him. The father will send some surrogates to clean up the messes, like he's always done.

But this time, it's on a much larger scale......

[acmavm]

5. Okay, this is where we disagree. You assume the Wrinkle Queen and

her hubby GHW have a drop of decency flowing through their veins. I do not. They know what they are responsible for turning lose on this country, they understand perfectly well their part in raising this sociopathic amoral SOB. It's a family trait.

And there's no one to send in to clean up his mess. It's too big. And Chimpy is so arrogant and backward, so morally bankrupt and indecent that he believes all these people who are using him, letting him believe he's really running the show. And they tell him, day after day, issue after issue, criminal act after criminal act, that he is right. And he believes it. Just like he believes he's whatever one might calll a 'compassionate Christian'. He has no compassion whatsoever and he has no clue as to what the words and teachings of Jesus Christ meant.

I truly believe he suffers from a serious mental illness.

[bloom]

4. Sounds like it's working out pretty well for Israel....

"The prospect of al-Qaida migrating west out of Iraq into Jordan and the Palestinian territories has given hawkish Israelis an opening to argue that Israel must hold on to Palestinian land in the West Bank as a buffer."

What a great "excuse".