12-14-2005, 06:07 AM
I interpret `control' as meaning that the Bush administration wanted to establish military bases in the middle-east, as well as a pro-western political ally --- instead of being forced to rely on highly repressive Arab regimes, like Saudi-Arabia, that fomented (and continue to foment) the idealogies leading to 9/11. The administration used 9/11 in a shamelessly dishonest way to sell the invasion of Iraq. It was clear long before the war, not just in hindsight, that they were determined to invade, and that they were fixing the `facts' around this policy.
Why? There are no doubt secondary reasons, such as supporting Israel and opposing Al Qaida, but the main goal of the Iraq invasion was surely to secure US (and other corporate) access to middle-eastern oil.
As an anti-terrorism policy, the Iraq war made as much sense as using gasoline to put out a barely smoldering fire. (The use of torture is a disasterous policy also.) As a policy to topple an isolated, despotic, and vulnerable regime, and install a pro-western democracy that would host US forces in the heart of the middle-east, it made sense. (At least, from a certain perspective, and if one believes that the use of miitary force is justifiable for such ends.)
Never mind that the head of the Pakistani nuclear program was shopping nuclear technology to all and sundry, or that there is god-knows how much untracked nuclear material missing from the states of the former USSR.
It may be that the Iraquis (at least the Kurds and the Shia -- I would be worried as a Sunni in Iraq right now), not to mention Iran, will be the ultimate benefactors of this misbegotten and costly adventure. The ultimate irony for the hubris of the Bush administration is that, given the unpopularity of the occupying forces, the US may never secure a long-term military presence in Iraq, despite the 14 (?) permanent military bases under construction there.
I don't expect to here very much about the latter bases in the US media coverage of the `withdrawal' that is certainly coming soon.
Why? There are no doubt secondary reasons, such as supporting Israel and opposing Al Qaida, but the main goal of the Iraq invasion was surely to secure US (and other corporate) access to middle-eastern oil.
As an anti-terrorism policy, the Iraq war made as much sense as using gasoline to put out a barely smoldering fire. (The use of torture is a disasterous policy also.) As a policy to topple an isolated, despotic, and vulnerable regime, and install a pro-western democracy that would host US forces in the heart of the middle-east, it made sense. (At least, from a certain perspective, and if one believes that the use of miitary force is justifiable for such ends.)
Never mind that the head of the Pakistani nuclear program was shopping nuclear technology to all and sundry, or that there is god-knows how much untracked nuclear material missing from the states of the former USSR.
It may be that the Iraquis (at least the Kurds and the Shia -- I would be worried as a Sunni in Iraq right now), not to mention Iran, will be the ultimate benefactors of this misbegotten and costly adventure. The ultimate irony for the hubris of the Bush administration is that, given the unpopularity of the occupying forces, the US may never secure a long-term military presence in Iraq, despite the 14 (?) permanent military bases under construction there.
I don't expect to here very much about the latter bases in the US media coverage of the `withdrawal' that is certainly coming soon.