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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (36166)	8/3/2009 12:31:30 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

We wanted to beat the Russians so we weren't particularly worried about the folks we were helping to do it. If we didn't help then the only source of funds would have been the radicals and things might have been worse. If the Russians won, the cold war might have been extended. Whether or not the Russians won the problem with radical Islamic fighters and terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan might have been just as bad or perhaps worse. I'm not sure if your trying to hint at this or not, but the 9/11 wouldn't have happened if we didn't support the opposition to the Russians argument is a real weak one. As for Iraq it isn't dominated by Iran and is very unlikely to become an Iranian client state. Sure the Shia are in the majority, but they are Arab Shia, not Persians. The government is and likely will continue to be friendlier to Iran than Saddam was, but that doesn't make Iraq in to a puppet of the Mullah's. If your argument is not that Iraq will be a puppet but that it will be too weak and thus Iran will be able to invade Iraq and/or dominate the gulf, neither is going to happen unless the US pulls out of the region (not just gets most or all of its forces out of Iraq, but stops being active in the region as a whole). Besides its not like Saddam ever did much to keep Iran from playing games in the gulf. Many of Iran's worst games happened while Iraq was actively at war with Iran. Also the democracy in Iraq may have contributed to the pressure for greater democracy and freedom in Iran.