Reply #30: Dude, you've been reading the New Republic

[jackbourassa]

I got that email today too. The New Republic (which of course is a DLC magazine) supported the war from the beginning. They're not about to begin admitting that they have no clue what they're talking about and the whole strategy was doomed from the start. Especially given the fact that the above mentioned strategy has led to the death of 2,200 US soldiers and has cost American taxpayers about a quarter of a TRILLION dollars. That's right with a T.

The New Republic makes the same assumption about Democracy that Bush does. That people in the Middle East think as we do about politics. The political clevages in the Middle East are not broken up between Republicans and Democrats, with some supporting a populist party and others supporting a free-market party. It's not based on economics at all. It's broken up between Islamic hardliners (those who are "strict constructionalists" on the Koran) and reformist moderates (who want to modernize the middle east). The problem, as these elections have clearly shown, is that the former has the upper hand. A "permanent majority" if you like. In Iraq, the clerics won the vast majority of seats in Shi'a provinces. They are fundamentalists like what we see in Iran. Has anyone ever bothered to ask Bush, why we consider what we do in Iraq to be such a success - and Iran such a tyrany, when in reality they have essentially the same system? The "moderates" won what 15 seats out of 165? In Iran, the moderates were wiped out. In Palestine, Hamas won a pretty comfortable size majority.

Part of the problem is that people in Washington - and the New Republic - are listening to Ahmad Chalabi, who told us that we would be met as liberators if we invaded. They would throw roses at our feet, etc. Problem is Chalabi doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. This is a guy who has lived in Britain for the past 25 years. How does he know what people think in Iraq. The fact that nothing went according to plan once we invaded, that there were no weapons of mass destruction - as he promised there would be, or that he and his party failed to win even a single seat (in fact they failed to break 1%) in the most recent election, should go to show that this guy has no clout in Iraq. He's just a bullshiter and Bush/Cheney fell for his bullshit. Actually, Chalabi and the neocons had formed a real nice bullshit echo chamber for years. The neocons were told that they needed to "save" Iraq. And Chalabi was told how he would one day make a great President of a free Iraq. After a while, I guess they began believing their own bullshit.

None of Bush's assumptions about Iraq have come true as of yet.