WP: Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of U.S. Vision

[kskiska]

Monday, February 14, 2005; Page A01

When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions.

But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.

Yesterday, the White House heralded the election and credited the U.S. role. In a statement, President Bush praised Iraqis "for defying terrorist threats and setting their country on the path of democracy and freedom. And I congratulate every candidate who stood for election and those who will take office once the results are certified."

Yet the top two winning parties -- which together won more than 70 percent of the vote and are expected to name Iraq's new prime minister and president -- are Iran's closest allies in Iraq.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21679-2005Feb13.html

[acmavm]

1. The bush** administration has got to hold the record for the most, the

biggest, and costly screw ups in the history of the human race.

[aikido15]

26. Yep!

George W. Bush is the WORST PRESIDENT EVER! That's what the history books will read.

[Patriot Acts]

47. Our children....

....will ask, what did you do to stop it? ....then look down on us in shame!

Maybe! ...yeah, I think that's how it will go down!

[tommcintyre]

46. ALSO THE TWO BIGGEST THEFTS IN HISTORY N/T

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. The Law of Unintended Effects strikes again.

These guys are just too fucking full of themselves and fundimentally stupid to see what it is they are creating. The Iraqi people do not want to be a US client state. No one does. They want to be full and proud members of the community of nations and set their own course. Of course, they want to ally themselves with their neighbors as well.

Which is really a great thing, considering the war they once fought.

[PartyPooper]

3. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

:bounce:

[NYC Liberal]

4. Uh-oh. Diebold fucked up.

Guess this means we'll have to have a revote.

[ClintonTyree]

19. Diebold wasn't involved.........purple fingers were involved.......

THAT'S why the election didn't go bush's way, Diebold WASN'T involved. Everybody in Iraq (all 60% of them that DID vote :eyes: ) had purple fingers to prove they voted. Remember the purple fingered Republican idiots from Congress at the SOTU address?

We, as Americans, want purple fingers TOO! No more Diebold bullshit! I'd rather walk around with a purple finger for a week or two than have my vote STOLEN by Diebold!

The bush administration could fuck up a one car funeral procession. It's no surprise to anyone here that bush's half assed plan is going to come back and bite him in the ass. He's just created Iran Junior and soon, after invading Iran, will have the ENTIRE Middle East gunning for our soldiers. Can you say monumental fuck-up? bush can't, he NEVER makes mistakes.

"None but the well bred man knows how to confess a fault, or acknowledge himself in error".- Benjamin Franklin

I guess we know where george bush stands in the "well bred" area!

[Joyce78]

23. Diebold

Send SOS Blackwell ... he knows how to "deliver" results.

[BattyDem]

5. These idiots can't get ANYTHING right!!!

Everything they touch turns to shit! It really is unbelievable! How can so many people with so much money and power be so f*cking incompetent?!?!?

[w4rma]

6. Too much inherited wealth puts total insane lazy idiots in power (nt)

[Gyre]

7. Chimps "Jonah" energy has infected everything he touches

It's like some kind of Stephen King/O'Brian novel. In Aubrey/Maturin's navy, the deck seamen would slip a shank into him during a nightwatch, throw his worthless carcass overboard and the sun would come out after there being nothing but storms for the last 4 years. Well, yeah, there'd be some damn sick sharks barfing him back up, and they'd have to call out a HAZMAT team to mop up the yuck, but he would've been rendered harmless by then. "I have a dream!" :)

Gyre

[ginnyinWI]

34. I'll tell ya why

they value blind loyalty over competence. And anybody with an independently functioning brain is on our side! Heehee.

[Richard Steele]

35. "Everyone with an independently functioning brain" is NOT enough!

We need a MAJORITY, dammit!

(Mad props to Adlai Stevenson)

[Patriot Acts]

48. we need a man-

date

[NNN0LHI]

8. Not to mention the 8 million or so Iraqi Sunni Muslims who have...

...now all become Americas deadly enemy due to Chimpy's wonderful adventure. I hope they are forgiving types. Oh shit! The people who used to live in Fallujah before Chimpy bombed that city into rubble! Those people will never forgive America for what Bush did and is continuing to do to them. Their children's children will be instructed to hate all Americans. Guess they didn't dance in the streets fast enough or throw fresh enough rose petals toward the troops during the liberation process?

Don

[Pirate Smile]

9. "Most of the neoconservative assumptions about what would happen have

proven false." No Shit!!! Have these a$$holes been right about anything?

[calimary]

18. I think you just hit on something.

They know they're "right-wing" - so they assume that equates with "correct." But it depends on what your definition of "right" is.

[tedzbear]

10. Who is worse, Iran or United States???

"But the results were announced at a time when the United States faces mounting tensions with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons ambitions, support for extremism and human rights violations."
---WASH POST

The way I read this is Iran is tense over the United State's nuclear weapons ambitions (bunker busters), support for extremism (Christian fundamentalism) and human rights violations (Abu Ghraib, etc).

Muhahahahahaha! Wash. Post, you are SO full of shit.

[deadparrot]

11. ** should be happy....more religious fundamentalists.

Doesn't matter what religion they are...fundamentalists/religious extremists are all the same in my book.

[VegasWolf]

12. bush .. irony...screwup..unexpected results - yep, that's the repukes

pretzledent.

[othermeans]

13. See I told you they have mad cowboy disease in Texas!

[Skinner]

14. I'm shaking my head.

This is ridiculous.

[KansDem]

15. It's been said before but worth repeating in this case...

BUSH...HAS...F*CKED...UP...EVERYTHING...HE...HAS...COME...INTO...CONTACT...WITH

Ignoring it, as with the corporate media, or denying it, as with his core base, JUST DOES NOT MAKE THIS FACT GO AWAY...!!!


SAVVY, America??!!!!
Do you get it, now???

[rocktivity]

16. I can almost hear Jon Stewart now

"AAAAAAAAWWWWWKKKK-WARD!"

:headbang:
rocknation

[ktowntennesseedem]

17. That's the problem with freedom.

When you give others a choice, they may or may not choose what you would choose, unless of course you get Diebold to limit the choices or skew the outcome.

Guess that's why they keep trying to limit our freedoms; it's hard work keeping control when we keep making decisions that don't adhere to the script.

[Az_lefty]

20. It's hard to imagine that the idiots in charge didn't see this coming

Didn't Rummy say that a Shiite ruling party would be unacceptable? Well, that's exactly what they got. Aligned with Iran no less. Guess we played right into the ayatollahs hands.
:shrug:

[Drifter]

21. Doesn't this give the president more "political" capital ...

that he can spend.

Cheers
Drifter

[Redstone]

22. I can't, I can't...I just can't do it

Have been racking my brains trying to figure out how they'll spin THIS one, and I am just not smart enough, or cynical enough, or not something enough to come up with the words.

But they'll do it, like they always do. The statements will be a new height of preposterousness (is that a word?) and the majority of selfish, lazy, ignorant Americans will drink the Kool-Aid like they always do.

This is getting depressing.

Redstone

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

24. Think of the savings on military pensions...

Dead soldiers don't collect benefits.

[applegrove]

25. They have totally undone the mystic of American Might! n/t

[Knight of Ni]

27. Did the Bushies flunk Math 101?

Didn't they realize that if they gave the entire population of a country the right to one vote each, and over 60% of that population was Shiite, that the odds of a Shiite candidate winning was EXTREMELY high?

Maybe they should have given Diebold a no-bid contract along with Haliburton and Bechtel.

[aikido15]

29. Allawi is a Shiite...

they were banking on him staying in power, but the Shiites decided they want one of their own, not a US puppet...opps!

I think it's GREAT! Serves the Bushscum right!

[aikido15]

28. What scares me about this is how Bush...

is going to spin his way out of this recent failure...start another war, fund another terrorist attack to scare the American people into submission...WHAT? What new bogeyman will he come up with...Hugo Chavez must be taken out, he's a communist threat?

The possibilities scare the hell out of me!:scared:

[applegrove]

30. I say Rove needs to put his boots on the ground in Iraq! For the next

decade or so. LOL

[aikido15]

32. They all need to be sent to Iraq

Chickenhawks, sickening yellow bellied cowards!

[Knight of Ni]

44. Especially George.......

....who is Chickenhawk Little himself.

[yebrent]

31. I think the results were tampered with.

snip:

And a senior State Department official said yesterday that the 48 percent vote won by the Shiite slate deprives it of an outright majority. "If it had been higher, the slate would be seen with a lot more trepidation," he said on the condition of anonymity because of department rules.

49% would have been too obvious. Anything less than 48% would have been too suspicious. I am hearing rumblings of serious Shiite disappointment at the results. They expected to easily be above 50%. I wonder if they will fully accept the results?

[Sauber]

33. Really?....

These three agencies present a different story.

Bottom line is the Shia's won 48% of the vote not a majority and not a 2/3rds majority to force through legislation without compromise and alliance building.

The Kurds, the next biggest party is expected to nominate Jalal Talibani as president. Mr. Talibani was a former member of the US appointed governing council.

Not quite the picture the WAPO is painting.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/13/iraq.main/ind...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4263087.st...

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=wor...

[Cocoa]

36. WP conveniently forgets to mention Chalabi

[lonestarnot]

37. so much for bushitler's vision of liberty and justice for all...

:puke: So now what supply the insurgency until EVERYBODY gets dead or do we tuck tail and run home like smart people who do not want to kill and maim for an ideology.

[Beetwasher]

38. Can Someone Give These FUCKING REPORTERS A GODDAMN CLUE

Club smack right to the side of the head and just point them to the threads here on DU before we invaded?

Another one of those "Gee, an Islamic theocracy, whoda thunk it?".

Stupid treasonous fucks.

[Kahuna]

41. Yep. We could have told those dumbasses the result had they bothered..

to ASK us why we were protesting in the freezing cold.

[Knight of Ni]

45. Nahh, why would they do that.....

...when asking us "Why do you hate America?" over and over and over again was SOOOO much more productive?

[Kahuna]

39. Bush is such a dumbass. Everything the guy has every touched..

has turned to poop. Why should Iraq be any different? :grr:

[Kahuna]

40. Imagine how the gung ho soldiers who support sacrificing their..

very lives for the Iraqis freedom must feel. Bush is such a dolt.

[ausiedownunderground]

42. Bush has a Trojan horse! Everything will still be sweet!

Mainstream media over here in Oz and i suspect in the US have been trumpeting the recent rise of democracy in Iraq as a glorious opportunity for the people of Iraq to bring down tyranny and set themselves free! The number of Iraqi voters who actually voted being banded around by the MSM would have you believe that Iraqi's have grabbed this democractic election thing by the horns and run with it for all its worth. However the reality appears to be a lot different if you dig down a little deeper. Only 55% of the Shiite population eligable to vote actually voted, despite Sistani's pleas and the threat of food rationing cards being removed from people who did not vote. Only 2% of Sunni's voted. Thats not many out of 5 million!! Did the other 45% of Shia stand in national solidarity with the Sunni. Highly likely! Thats an awful lot of potential guerrillas!
Now some MSM reports are issuing warnings that the election could backfire on "The Bush Gang" with the rise of the UAI (United Iraqi Alliance) supposedly controlled by Sistani. Some reports are saying this will bring Chalabi back or more hopefully that Sistani will have to go into a coalition with Allawi as surprisingly the UAI only secured 48% of the national vote. However "The Bush Gang" has and has always had a Shiite Trojan Horse in the UAI ranks. His name is Adel Abd Al-Mahdi the current Iraqi Finance Minister. Remember this name. This guy has so far given "The Bush Gang" everything they've wanted in his position as Finance Minister and if elevated to the top spot will continue to give them what they want. Sistani may think he controls the religious issues but this guy controls the "money"!! Guerrilla commanders have been trying to take him out for quite some time but he's better protected than Allawi! I wonder why?

[wrate]

43. From what I read about the new Iraqi Constitution, whoever becomes

President will have little power. Its all part of the American idea of Democracy. The U.S. keeps most of the control over government and natural resources (I read about it in the L.A. Times a while back).

So, it's to be seen if the elected government or coalition respects this "Constitution", of course. And in case they don't, if the U.S. will be there to enforce it.

[AnneD]

49. So let me get this straight.......

If the people in a foreign country have a democratic election (with certain areas and people excluded) and vote to have the government they choose, say one with certain religious leader having a disproportionate say, it is not a democracy but an evil theocracy. But if there is a democratic election (with certain areas and people excluded)in this country and certain religious leaders have a disproportionate say then it is a democracy????? Am I missing something????OK so where's my rifle and paycheck or is our revolution being outsourced too.

[Stuckinthebush]

50. We have given Osama so many gifts these past few years

What idiots we are.

We start a war on Iraq, get rid of Saddam, incite a new wave of anti-America violence, increase the recruitment of terrorists, piss off the world, have our currency drop like a rock, help the Islamic nations have a purpose to combine their efforts against us, and unwittingly install a pro-theocracy regime in Iraq.

Osama must have a tummy ache from all of the laughing he has been doing.

Great job Bush - you ignorant piece of crap.