In war, you have to be clever and tactical about what you say to the media. You don’t want to hand your opponents a good opening on a plate.

What exactly were the neocon visionaries…envisioning for Iraq? Did they seriously think the result of the invasion was going to be a pro-Western democracy that was still an effective buffer against Iran? Is it paranoid to suggest that that was too naive and reality-blindered to be true? Is there some occult model in which a more robust Iran is actually a plus for Western interests? I’m not seeing it. What I’m seeing is amateurish military execution and failed geopolitics.

The Middle East has been a tangled knot of counterbalancing powers — an ugly, shifting but stubborn stasis — since the end of the Cold War. Stasis is philosophically unsatisfying to behold, but it works to keep nations from annihiliating each other. The Iraq invasion was the first permanent-looking rip in that web. The secular powers in the West are not going to like the results in the long run.

Democracy? Possibly — the Palestinian kind. Islamic people, given the genuine right to vote for their own leaders, are going to tend to vote Islamic. Often, that will mean anti-Western and yes, pro-Iranian ’stans — not exactly the neocon vision, but democracy in action.

I believe some sort of new stasis will emerge eventually, but the end result will be a much stronger Iran, possibly enlarged (maybe literally) by the assertion of Shi’ite majority identity in Iraq. Nothing short of another, much larger war will diminish Iran in the next couple of decades, and that simply is not going to happen, no matter how many cheerleaders it has in places like this. Stasis is going to get tenser, angrier and a lot more expensive for Israel, and the Saudis.

The Iraq invasion was glamorous; it made good television and it appealed to a popular ideology. But it was a sucker bet. A losing bet.

We’ve shot off a couple of toes; let’s hope we can salvage the rest of the foot.

Remember “shock and awe” ??

Israel is also trying out “shock and awe from the skies” right now. But once the boots on the ground have to go in (as they inevitably have to, in order to win the peace after the war has been “won”), that’s when the quagmire usually begins…

Has Israel learned anything from the US experience in Iraq? Preliminary indications are that it has not.

Fortunately this won’ make a difference because it’s perfectly okay to make and sell weapons — the core of the problem is to make and sell weapons for the intent of using them to start and facilitate a war. This is vastly different from using such weapons to fight back aggression. The MSM by and large will not dig this deeply into the question, that why I prefer news analysis like what we have on Foxnews.

How exactly do you characterize “people like me”?

It is in the nature of Stalinism for its adherents to make a certain kind of lying – and not only to others but first of all to themselves – a fundamental part of their lives. It is always a mistake to assume that Stalinists do not know the truth about the political reality they espouse. If they don’t know the truth (or all of it) one day, they know it the next, and it makes absolutely no difference to them politically. For their loyalty is to something other than the truth. And no historical enormity is so great, no personal humiliation or betrayal so extreme, no crime so heinous that it cannot be assimilated into the ‘ideals’ that govern the Stalinist mind, which is impervious alike to documentary evidence and moral discrimination.

– Hilton Kramer

I wasn’t emphasizing that, I was pointing out Iran’s decades of ideological leadership for the fantasy of Islamic totalitarianism which makes them worthy of being our #1 target. Our war against “terror” will not be won until Tehran is defeated. But the neocons hope, year after year, for a perfect storm of pressures to mount upon Tehran until there is regime change there. Does anyone think this strategy of hope is working to date?

The gross military imbalance between Israel and its neighbours is the root
cause of the current instability and misery in the Middle East. If the Palestinians or any of the neighbouring states had the capacity to “proportionately” threaten and inflict the same degree of destruction on Israel’s infrastructure and civilian population, the chances of a lasting regional peace would increase correspondingly. While others - including the well-intentioned - might disagree, the development of an Iranian nuclear deterrent would be a positive rather than a negative development for the region. Far from further destabilizing it, it would redress the military balance and be the most effective means of forcing the Israelis to make peace
with Palestinians. To the extent that peace in the middle east is in the US interest, a nuclear Iran is, therefore, very much in the US interest.

Painer, I don’t think it would be wise to goad the Palestinians and Israelis into a war that kills the last man, woman, and child simply because you believe that peace only comes when both sides get tired of fighting a never ending war between balanced forces.

Nyo should read that link above at bookworm for some relating background info.

Disarm Hezbollah and Hamas and you have peace. Disarm Israel and you have war until the last Israeli hits the dirt.

Okay I’ll check out the link — I just noticed it.

Your Iranian balance of power is laughable. If they ceased attacking Israel, there would be peace. Thus, there will never be peace because Hamas and Hezbollah will not quit.
Jordan is the Palestinian Arab homeland but the Hashemites prefered to use them as pawns back in 48.