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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (282826)	11/15/2015 12:06:12 AM
From: Alex MG	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541648

Definitely Saudi Arabia bears much of the blame for extremism... their society is still extreme but yet we have always looked the other way because of course for cheap oil... the government still beheads people for nominal crimes or no real crimes at all... and they are a repressive backward society... but have been given a pass because of their oil wealth I agree with Bill Maher that many liberals give too much of a pass to Islam in general... much of their dogma is still living in ancient times and based on brutality, religious extremism, and oppression of women

To: koan who wrote (282826)	11/15/2015 12:40:32 AM
From: Asymmetric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541648

I believe the reason the United States pursued a failed policy of trying to keep Iraq whole, was we wanted it to act as a bulwark against a large regional economic and military power - namely Iran, and Iraq could only do so if it somehow survived as a single country. Importantly the United States have always felt they could then control Iraq...as least as far as vis-à-vis the Iranians. That was George Bush's and the neocons grand strategy - to extend US influence, by invading Iraq, and turning it into a pro-US democracy, controlling their vast oil wealth, and using Iraq as a check on Iranian power. The continuum of right-wing miscalculation, meddling, and political disaster in Iran goes as far back as John Foster Dulles under Eisenhower, who orchestrated the overthrow of popularly elected Mossadegh in 1953.