"...One such critic is United States Army General Tommy Franks, who, according to Bob Woodward's 2004 Plan of Attack, described leading neocon Feith as the "f_cking stupidest guy on the face of the earth" ...
Iran's Growing Sway in Iraq Defies Neocons' Logic
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Aug 25 (IPS) - Anyone who still believes that the U.S. neo-conservatives who led the drive to war in Iraq are diabolically clever geo-strategic masterminds should now consider Iran's vastly improved position vis-a-vis its U.S.-occupied neighbour.
Not only did Washington knock off Tehran's arch-foe, Saddam Hussein, as well as the anti-Iranian Taliban in Afghanistan, but, with this week's completion of a new constitution that would guarantee a weak central government and substantial autonomy to much of the Shiite south, it also appears that Iran's influence in Iraq -- already on the rise after last spring's inauguration of a pro-Iranian interim government -- is set to grow further.
"The new constitution will strengthen the hand of the provincial forces in the South which are pro-Iranian," according to University of Michigan Iraq expert Juan Cole, who notes that the state structure authorised by the draft charter would amount more to a confederation than a federal system.
Moreover, Cole told IPS, the constitutional ban on any law that contravenes Islamic law will likely give Shiite clerics significant power over the state, moving Iraq much closer to the Iranian model. "While there's no clerical dictator at the head of government as in Iran, if you had five ayatollahs on the Supreme Court who were striking down laws because they contravened Islam, that's pretty close to the Iranian system," he said.
In a recent colloquium for The Nation magazine, Shibley Telhami, a Middle East specialist at the Brookings Institution, noted that, "No one in Washington would have imagined that with all the human and financial costs of the war, the United States would find itself supporting a government ... (with) close ties to Iran and that would conclude a military agreement with Tehran for the training of Iraq forces, even as nearly 140,000 U.S. troops remained on Iraq soil."
This indeed was not how it was supposed to turn out for neo-conservatives who had argued that the gratitude of Iraqis for their "liberation" from Saddam would result in the installation of a secular, pro-western government that would permit its territory to be used for U.S. military bases as yet another pressure point -- or possible launching pad -- against an increasingly beleaguered and unpopular Islamic Republic (and Syria, too) next door. http://tinyurl.com/72r6x
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Iran's Growing Sway in Iraq Defies Neocons' Logic
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Aug 25 (IPS) - Anyone who still believes that the U.S. neo-conservatives who led the drive to war in Iraq are diabolically clever geo-strategic masterminds should now consider Iran's vastly improved position vis-a-vis its U.S.-occupied neighbour.
Not only did Washington knock off Tehran's arch-foe, Saddam Hussein, as well as the anti-Iranian Taliban in Afghanistan, but, with this week's completion of a new constitution that would guarantee a weak central government and substantial autonomy to much of the Shiite south, it also appears that Iran's influence in Iraq -- already on the rise after last spring's inauguration of a pro-Iranian interim government -- is set to grow further.
"The new constitution will strengthen the hand of the provincial forces in the South which are pro-Iranian," according to University of Michigan Iraq expert Juan Cole, who notes that the state structure authorised by the draft charter would amount more to a confederation than a federal system.
Moreover, Cole told IPS, the constitutional ban on any law that contravenes Islamic law will likely give Shiite clerics significant power over the state, moving Iraq much closer to the Iranian model. "While there's no clerical dictator at the head of government as in Iran, if you had five ayatollahs on the Supreme Court who were striking down laws because they contravened Islam, that's pretty close to the Iranian system," he said.
In a recent colloquium for The Nation magazine, Shibley Telhami, a Middle East specialist at the Brookings Institution, noted that, "No one in Washington would have imagined that with all the human and financial costs of the war, the United States would find itself supporting a government ... (with) close ties to Iran and that would conclude a military agreement with Tehran for the training of Iraq forces, even as nearly 140,000 U.S. troops remained on Iraq soil."
This indeed was not how it was supposed to turn out for neo-conservatives who had argued that the gratitude of Iraqis for their "liberation" from Saddam would result in the installation of a secular, pro-western government that would permit its territory to be used for U.S. military bases as yet another pressure point -- or possible launching pad -- against an increasingly beleaguered and unpopular Islamic Republic (and Syria, too) next door. http://tinyurl.com/72r6x
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posted by Dan at 6:19 PM
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