http://justworldnews.org/archives/002344.htmlJanuary 17, 2007
Washington's shaky political house in Baghdad
Posted by Helena Cobban at January 17, 2007 03:17 PM
I honestly can't decide whether it's hilariously funny or just plain downright tragic, the extent to which the Bushites' have built their entire political "house" in Iraq on a foundation long ago laid and since then assiduously maintained by Teheran and Damascus.
Honestly, has nobody among the Bushites ever noticed this?
* There, back in the day, was Ahmed Chalabi, back in February and March 2003, going back to Iraq as the US-sponsored "liberator"-- but travelling there via Teheran, where he held close consultations with the regime's intelligence people.
* There has been Jalal Talabani, now the US-installed "President" of Iraq, visiting Syria over the past few days--m the first visit by an Iraqi head of state to Syria in over 30 years. The trip is scheduled to last six days. Talabani made the gracious gesture of traveling to the Asad family's home village of Qardaha to visit the tomb of the late president Hafez al-Asad... Yes, that would be the same Hafez al-Asad who gave Talabani refuge for roughly 15 years, from 1975 through 1991.
* And there is SCIRI leader Abdel-Aziz Hakim, long puffed up by the Bushites and their obedient press corps as "the strongest Shiite politician in Iraq", etc. The same man whom the Bushists were hoping-- along with his always politically malleable sidekick, Adel Abdul-Mehdi-- would help them organize the anti-Moqtada, anti-Maliki 'coup' they were planning a few weeks ago... And there he was, yet again today, still whingeing publicly about the US forces' "arrest" (or actually, capture) of five employees from Iranian consular offices in northern Iraq last week.
... Well, we can forget for now (but probably not forever) about Chalabi. But let's just look at the positions now being espoused by the kingpins of the US political "plan" in Baghdad: Talabani, Hakim, or, for example, Iraq's ethnic-Kurdish Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari (who on Sunday told the BBC that Iraq needs a constructive relationship with Iran); or, come to that, PM Maliki himself....