Saudi says U.S. policy handing Iraq over to Iran

[sabra]

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=9/22/2005&Cat=2&Num=008

Saudi says U.S. policy handing Iraq over to Iran

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- U.S. policy in Iraq is widening sectarian divisions to the point of effectively handing the country to Iran, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said on Tuesday.

"(Iraq's) people have been separated from each other," Faisal told the Council of Foreign Relations in New York.

"You talk now about Sunnis as if they were separate entity from the Shiite."

He urged the United States, which is battling a Sunni Arab insurgency against occupying U.S. forces and backs the Kurdish- and Shiite-led Iraqi government, to work "to bring these people together."

...

"If you allow civil war, Iraq is finished forever," Faisal said.

[Pirate Smile]

1. WSJ has a good article today explaining the mess down in the south.

"We always think we're playing the Iraqis, but they always end up playing us."

Basra Violence
Challenges U.S. Strategy

Attacks in Southern Iraq
Raise Doubts on Free Rein
For Militias Linked to Iran

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 21, 2005; Page A12

A surge of violence in Basra, Iraq's second-biggest city, has raised new doubts about the U.S.-led coalition's strategy for pacifying southern Iraq by giving free rein to Shiite religious militias with ties to neighboring Iran.

Backed by the U.S., the British forces in southern Iraq have effectively looked the other way as Shiite Muslim religious parties solidified their control over the city's government and as militia members joined the local police force while maintaining loyalty to militia leaders. The policy choice rested on an unspoken trade-off, with the British banking on the militias' ability to prevent insurgents from sowing instability or endangering Basra's ports and oil fields.

The coalition strategy for Basra has left militiamen in control of Basra's police force and Shiite fighters in plain clothes circulating openly in the city. A combination of the two forces has been blamed for the abduction and murder of two journalists, including one American. The forces are also at the center of the growing international dispute with Britain that erupted this week after British tanks crashed through a Basra prison and British forces raided a private house to free a pair of undercover commandos who had been arrested by Iraqi police and then handed over to militiamen.

-snip-
"The British policy was the triumph of short-term stability over long-term success: The Shiite militias metastasize like cancer when they find out they can get away with things," said Michael Rubin, a former adviser to the American occupation authority in Iraq now at the American Enterprise Institute. "We always think we're playing the Iraqis, but they always end up playing us."

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB1127223718440...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x158581

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. this from Bush's friends. in PUBLIC, no less.

I can only imagine how Condi and the boys are burning up the comm lines to Riyadh

[kenny blankenship]

3. It's not "finished forever"

it's just becoming the newest and largest province of the Islamic Revolutionary Republic of Iran.

So far from being "finished forever", we'll being hearing plenty from Iraq in the future, you can bet your sweet gas-masks!

[bee]

4. allow? I think "incite" is more appropriate. n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Now you know who the real allies are for the neo-cons.

Okay, so maybe it's just a knee-jerk hunch. But think about it. Saudi citizens were behind the 9/11 attacks; those terrorists were protected while on U.S. soil, by somebody, ref: Able Danger; Saudis (bin Laden's) were flown out with the FBI's full knowledge; and Saudis have the most to gain from a weakened Iraq. Motive, method and for opportunity: Their tight connection to the Bushs.

Hey, this is tin-foil stuff for me, but I left Skeptism corner a long time ago and have been well on my way to cynical junction for some time.