Hawk,
Can't you see where this is leading?
We will install of govt in Iraq with people like Chalabi running the show--pro-Americans, at least nominally. But many many Iraqis are simply not pro-Americans. They are NOT dancing in the streets. There will be noise about how Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqi people, and blah blah blah. Some of the proceeds will for sure be spent on the "Iraqi people." But a good deal of it will go to lining the pockets of Chalabi or whoever is in charge and their friends, as well as undoubtedly US companies for participating in the "reconstruction" of Iraq (maybe not on the scale of Saddam, but I somehow doubt that these rulers will be Plato's Guardians). They will, I will wager, be insensitive to Shias, and will not allow them to have the power that they want and, as a majority in the country, feel they deserve. The Kurds will also be pissed, and will at some point break from the govt, as they will feel betrayed while the US cosies up to Turkey. There will be various sorts of trouble, with violence in the country continually simmering and occasionally breaking out into little civil wars. The jails will again be filled with dissenters--what can you do with "these" people who won't accept the govt? But the govt will be seen by many if not most as a puppet, not as a real democratic govt. We will see 1953 Iran all over again--but this time there won't be any plausible deniability. US soldiers will be doing some of the killing and will be training Iraqis to do more killing, all the while propping up this Bush/neocon constructed govt. Like "Peace with Honor" in Vietnam, it will be a sham, and all will see it for what it is except a few US patriots who will mindlessly and endlessly repeat what a wonderful thing the US did for Iraq.
I predict both that this will in a few years (somewhere between 3 and 10 years) be even worse than 1953 Iran, and furthermore, people like me will be blamed for its failure, since we don't 100% back the action. |
