Post Election -Mission Acomplished in Iraq ??

galway | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Tuesday March 16, 2010 13:25 by donkylemore

One regeime changed for a possible coalition of Iranian and Iraqi Shia communities

Both Shia communities In Iran and Iraq can see that ‘’ the enemy of my enemy is also my friend ‘’ and in this regard they will find common ground in their distrust of the West and Israel with possibly dreadful consequences .
So while it suited the US to have Iran and Iraq locked in a decade of war , the tables are perversely reversed now .
Mission Accomplished ?
The world is in a more parlous state after G.W Bush's military folly

Today Iran congratulates Iraq for electing a non - reformist Shia dominated party ; Mr Malaki has defeated his rival , a secularist. Mr Alawi , who fought the election largely on a secularist card. He had tried to bring Sunni and Shia elements together in his party which was largely seen as reformist. He tried to bring the Saudi Sunnis along in the hope of attracting Sunni support in Iraq

Iran is not an Arab country. It is still referred to disparagingly in the region as Persia.
But Iran’s population are Muslims and for the most part these Muslims are of the Shia persuasion .

So where does that leave the regime change that the war was fought over.
Yes there has been a regime change . It has changed from a Sunni dominated power to a Shia dominated one.
There was an opportunity for reform ; a possibility that a balance of religious and civilian groups would be represented in parliament and that that parliament would not be dominated by sectarianism .
That hope has vanished now as Bagdad has moved closer to Teheran .
That this change should come about after years of fighting is the worst possible outcome for the US and British and others who are trying to emasculate Iran’s nuclear capacity.
The fundamentalists will see this victory in Iraq as a triumph for the greater Shia community .
This is something which can at least in one sense , set aside borders and unite the Shia factions in Iran and Iraq and elsewhere in their common cause against US or ‘’the West’’ generally having any further determination in Middle East oil exploitation by Western powers.
But it will do much worse .It will pitch together a greater the commonality of Shia communities in the region in their deep distrust of Israel.
Iran has been censured for not recognising the State of Israel . The Iraqi Shia community will be more emboldened now in giving expression to their same distrust in a more manifest way.
The Hizbullah movement in Gaza coupled with their support bases in Lebanon , Syria , and elsewhere may well tip the balance and ultimately gain sufficient political and military traction to convince Teheran to unleash whatever fledgling nuclear capacity it does possess and place Tel Aviv firmly in its cross hairs. The dangers of a ‘’dumb bomb’’ should not be underestimated . It would be comprised of unrefined radioactive material which could wreak havoc on a country the size of Israel.
And there is no doubt that Iran has the capacity to launch missiles capable of carrying an unrefined nuclear payload deep into Israel.

So where does this leave the unfinished business by the British and the Us and their smaller supporting components in Iraq. The US is to leave Iraq within 18 months , the British possibly sooner ., and the other reluctant participants even sooner still.

The Middle East will then be in a much more dangerous place that it has ever been .
Far from GW Bush‘s announcement of ‘’ Mission Accomplished ‘’ we must soon realise that he has placed the world in a more parlous state than the Cuban Missile Crises .

And at what cost . I have seen and met the fresh faced young soldiers in Shannon Airport on their way back for a second and third tour of duty. They knew that the war was unpopular at home. They knew that militarily it was impossible to win and that they’d been passed a poisoned chalice by the politicians ; a new definition of winning the war; the impossible’ ’ mission of winning the hearts and minds’’ - knowing that whoever coined this phrase had already conceded military defeat ; And also knowing that by establishing a timetable for their withdrawal , their own fate was in a sense deemed dispensable - who , after all wants to be the last soldier to die in any campaign ?
Those soldiers knew too that like their fathers they would return home not quite as ostracised as their fathers had been after Vietnam , but that they would have to face at least some social domestic hostility on their return.
Easy to understand the lack lustre look on their faces,; no zealous sense of fighting the noble cause , no way out .
And even after Obama’s election there was no great plan. The war in Iraq will have been an ignominious farce.
One regimen will have been replaced by another which is far more socially divisive and is closer to Teheran than the previous administration. And in this regard the invasion has played straight into the gung-ho hands of fundamentalists in Teheran.
Now it suits both Bagdad and Teheran to unite not under a political banner but under a much more potent the sectarian banner .
Both sides can see that ‘’ the enemy of my enemy is also my friend ‘’ and in this regard they will find common ground in their distrust of both the West and Israel with possibly dreadful consequences .
So while it suited the US ti have Iran and Iraq locked in a decade of war , the tables are perversely now .
Mission Accomplished ?