The Bush Administration is playing fast and loose with foreign policy again. Don't let us get sucked into a war with Iran.
Paul McGeough has a story for you if you'll listen.
The Australian journalist will tell you how he heard two separate eyewitness accounts that Ayad Allawi, currently serving as Prime Minister of the new Iraqi government, personally executed as many as six suspected rebels to "set an example" against future insurgency.
"[The eyewitnesses] congratulated him on the killings," he said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Saturday. "They thought this was a good thing, as do many Iraqis, incidentally. Such is the security environment in Iraq at the moment that anything that looks like a tough act against elements of the insurgency is welcomed by some Iraqis, by quite a few Iraqis."
The sentiment is apparently shared by our own American press. Calling him "Iraq's new S.O.B.," Newsweek has heralded Allawi's lack of diplomatic skills and aversion to democracy as the proper attitude to rule a country beset by violence and anarchy.
With Iraqis clamoring for security, Allawi is more than happy to clamp down on the freedoms the United States supposedly ran in guns a'blazin' to deliver to the poor and downtrodden. Dictatorship was an option at one point, as were a suspension of elections until the terror attacks died down (hmm, I wonder where he got that idea from?). As of now, however, Iraqis are "fortunate" to live under martial law.
"You can have an overdose of democracy," one Iraqi translator said last week. "That was our problem. We need somebody strong."
Then ladies and gentlemen, may I present for your consideration... Saddam Hussein?
Sure, Hussein's past is bloody, but how is he any better or worse than Allawi? Both are Baathist CIA assets working with the United States to achieve what short-sighted goals the Administration in place had at the time; both aim to control their subjugates with strong-arm tactics that cover up for their poor leadership skills. It's like looking in a shady despot mirror.
It's both funny and sobering that after all the noise thrown at the world by the American government that Iraq was an imminent danger ruled by a megalomaniacal tyrant, the U.S. again fully backs a cookie-cutter jackass that offers up little more than the same carbon copy bloodshed.
Iraq was supposed to be about liberation, about a fundamental shift in human rights in the Middle East. And it was, in a sense. Billions of taxpayer dollars were liberated from our schools and economy to line the pockets of Bush supporters, and human rights did shift fundamentally... into the toilet. Otherwise, it's just another one of our colossal muck-ups where everything is in disarray but absolutely no one is to blame.
It's critical, then, that right now you see the same scenario is playing out with Iraq's neighbor, Iran. Similar ignominious rhetoric is being shouted from the highest rooftops in Washington, D.C. even as politicians attempt to deflect and whitewash their participation in the greatest foreign policy debacle of the 21st century.
For example, an unnamed government official revealed to foreign press yesterday that, if re-elected in November, George W. Bush seeks to do to Iran what he did to Iraq. Promising "more intervention in the internal affairs of Iran," the official stated that any military action would be covert, roughly analogous to a spy network destabilizing the legitimate, albeit fundamentally religious government.
In other words, Bush is actively prepping to bring down another government through treachery and deception. Can you imagine if another country sidestepped our right to shape the destiny of the U.S. via infiltration and forced revolution? I doubt Americans would support it, yet that's what Bush wants to do to Iran (and what the U.S. has already done to countless other nations).
So if any of this has you reaching for the antacid, it's likely because you haven't seen build-up of negative press stories fostered to increase hatred and prejudice in the average American. Iran's been linked with September 11th, despite the CIA's assessment to the contrary. Iran collaborated with Osama bin Laden; its nuclear program a threat to the world.
Iran is just another sorry Crusade to impose Western values on a country that doesn't want them. And by the way, its destabilization helps only our buddies in Israel, the other lone country in the region with nuclear capabilities (its Dimona nuclear facility has reportedly created several hundred atomic warheads, making it the third greatest nuclear threat in the world behind Russia and the United States). Israel has begun to threaten Iran in much the same way it threatened Iraq before American invasion (diplomatic threats, border flyovers, etc.), so look to our "obligation" to our ally as the primary reason why we'd attempt such an idiotic maneuver despite near universal derision of American foreign policy in Iraq.
The government would be happy to have you sit and watch as it tried to smokescreen you with parlor tricks and theatrics. That's how the shell game works; misdirection keeps you guessing where the ball is. Instead, focus on the person controlling the shells as he hopes and prays you'll buy his distraction and he'll take your money. Bush is hoping you'll listen to the hullabaloo of the September 11th Commission and ignore the stupid, cyclical pushes for war he's been advocating before he took office.
We've invaded two countries because of flimsy 9-11 evidence and have found absolutely nothing linking Afghanistan and Iraq to an attack on our borders. Those invasions have done nothing but ruin the respective nations and open up opium trafficking.
Iraq is no freer today than it was under the previous dictator we helped to install. Iran's fate will be no better if we allow our men and women to commit themselves to another war built on lies.
In fact, if history is any judge, it'll just be more of the same.
Canon Fodder is a weekly analysis of politics and society.
Canon Fodder is a bi-weekly analysis of politics and society.
