Mr. Grant's Iran views....

[Rorysm]

Wow... I'm aghast at Mr. Grants views of Iran's offer to "help" deal with Iraq before the invasion.
Iran knew before the war that they would be hurt if a democracy is set up in Iraq. While Iran might gain somewhat from Saddam's reign ending, they stood to be hurt much worse by any form of liberal or democratic reforms next door trickling into the mindset of their people (which we are starting to see anyway in Iranian colleges).


To quote Mr. Grant "but when someone offers you everything you want, you at least hear them out".... Okay, Mr. Hitler is on line 1 and he says he wants to help. My point is, if you think you can depend on Iran, well you're in a dreamworld.

By the way... Iran is upsetting the UN by refusing to let inspectors into their country to see if their nuclear program is being used for weapons... THAT'S EXACTLY what Saddam did that led us down the path to war. Had Saddam let in the inspectors (instead of waiting three months to dismantle his program in secret) we would have never went into Iraq. Now Iran is doing the exact same thing... but somehow some element of people out there thinks we should have trusted Iran to help stop Iraq from doing the exact same thing Iran is doing now... WTF??? Now some people want us to meet with Syria and Iran to get their views on how to settle things down in Iraq--what kind of things, how about things like the Iranian weapons that Iraqi militias are using to kill our soldiers. But we're supposed to trust the people who are arming the people shooting at us????? Insanity. Pure insanity.

[Charles RB]

My point is, if you think you can depend on Iran, well you're in a dreamworld.

And that doesn't negate his point, which is if someone is willing to back down and do what you want without you having to take hostile action, you listen to them.

THAT'S EXACTLY what Saddam did that led us down the path to war. Had Saddam let in the inspectors

I remember that he did let inspectors in.

He sure dismantled that program really effectively though - so effectively there's no trace it ever existed!

Now some people want us to meet with Syria and Iran to get their views on how to settle things down in Iraq--what kind of things, how about things like the Iranian weapons that Iraqi militias are using to kill our soldiers

Well, yes, that is the kind of thing you meet with nations to diplomatically (or not so diplomatically) discuss, unless you want to launch hostile action at them (which AFAIK neither America nor Britain et al the allies are capable of pulling off at the moment).

[Adam C]

Wow... I'm aghast at Mr. Grants views of Iran's offer to "help" deal with Iraq before the invasion.

Really now? He's pointing out that an offer from Iran to cooperate over Iraq needs to at least be heard out rather than brushed off out of hand? Moreover, on what basis do we judge that Iran didn't have any self interest in helping the US with Iraq? Even before the current dispute over its nuclear program it had a number of economic sanctions on the country and the US was still hostile to it. While a stable democratic Iraq could be a threat to it, aiding the US in stablising Iraq could just as easily short circuit this threat by getting in good with Washington. It would be a lot easier to get security guarantees that Iraq would not be used against Iran's interests simply by making a large show of good will. Instead Iran ended up backing insurgents in Iraq in order to check against the bellicosity of the Bush administration because their offer was rebuffed.

By the way... Iran is upsetting the UN by refusing to let inspectors into their country to see if their nuclear program is being used for weapons... THAT'S EXACTLY what Saddam did that led us down the path to war. Had Saddam let in the inspectors (instead of waiting three months to dismantle his program in secret) we would have never went into Iraq.

Except he let the inspectors in and they searched for nearly four months. They would have searched longer but Bush wanted to go ahead with the invasion anyways so they had to be pulled out. When Iraq was occupied the traces of Saddam's program that were found were insubstantial and according to the Iraq Survey Group set up by the American government Saddam had ultimately ceased production of weapons of mass destruction and destroyed all major stockpiles after sanctions were imposed back in 1991. The only thing that remained was the expertise to rebuild them. So where do we get "waiting three months to dismantle the program in secret." The fact is that the US invaded because the neocons in the Bush administration wanted to rather than let the UN inspection process come through with all the facts.

[badMike]

Had Saddam let in the inspectors (instead of waiting three months to dismantle his program in secret) we would have never went into Iraq.

I know that there are people out there who still believe this kind of claptrap, but it's still shocking to read it...

[bartl]

I know that there are people out there who still believe this kind of claptrap, but it's still shocking to read it...

Of course, there are SEVERAL incorrect assumptions. Saddam allowed in the inspectors, but he did not provide them with the access they needed to determine that A) The weapons he had promised to destroy were destroyed, B) The weapons he still had stockpiled had not been moved, and C) He had not created any new ones. (note the AND C, not OR C. He provided NONE of the above). What the inspectors said was that, although he did not provide access, they could still get the information, given another 3 months.

But resolution 1441 did not say, "If you don't cooperate, we'll give you more time." It said that if he did not cooperate, there would be serious consequences. Now, one might ask that if the inspectors were going to find out anyway, why did Saddam stall? And why were France, Germany and Russia so keen on giving him the extra time?

As for the first, there is some evidence that Saddam actually thought that he WAS hiding something (and, for all we know, he might have been). And, if the deadline in 1441 was arbitrary, there would have been little or no problem with extending it another 3 months.

The problem was that the deadline was not at all arbitrary. Essentially, the forces needed to go into Iraq could not do so between April and August, for a large number of physical reasons that have been well documented (but, if anybody wants to just bust balls rather than have a serious discussion, I will look up sources for you). The U.S. had troops at the ready, prepared to either invade, or leave. They were NOT prepared to sit around until September, nor could they have been redeployed, and then brought back. So Bush was backed into a corner: Invade with whatever allies we could get, or give up entirely, giving a major impression of U.S. weakness at a time where such an impression would probably result in large numbers of American deaths around the world.

France and Germany, at the same time, were attempting to build the EU into a military and economic world power, with themselves at the center (Russia was playing it cool, shifting to whatever side would give it the best advantage; frankly, out of this whole thing, Russia appears to have come out the winner). They knew that in order to do so, they had to take the United States down a few pegs (when France asked the United States to reduce its military power, so that the EU would become more powerful by comparison, the United States had the temerity to refuse).

If you look at the countries that allied with the United States in going into Iraq, Great Britain in particular, you will see that their motive was not so much to support the United States, but to oppose France and Germany; to keep them from getting a dominant position in a united EU.

In other words, from a Security Council point of view, the inspections were a farce, and the entire Iraq situation was irrelevant. The real action was in Europe.

[Charles RB]

If you look at the countries that allied with the United States in going into Iraq, Great Britain in particular, you will see that their motive was not so much to support the United States, but to oppose France and Germany; to keep them from getting a dominant position in a united EU.

France and Germany already had a dominant position in the EU, and they still are the big cheeses there. How would us going to Iraq negate that?

[Nick Soapdish]

Of course, there are SEVERAL incorrect assumptions. Saddam allowed in the inspectors, but he did not provide them with the access they needed to determine that A) The weapons he had promised to destroy were destroyed, B) The weapons he still had stockpiled had not been moved, and C) He had not created any new ones. (note the AND C, not OR C. He provided NONE of the above). What the inspectors said was that, although he did not provide access, they could still get the information, given another 3 months.

I remember them saying that they'd been granted access to all sites, but that there were some issues and then very late in the game, the inspectors saying that Saddam was cooperating.

February 14 report to UN

But resolution 1441 did not say, "If you don't cooperate, we'll give you more time." It said that if he did not cooperate, there would be serious consequences. Now, one might ask that if the inspectors were going to find out anyway, why did Saddam stall? And why were France, Germany and Russia so keen on giving him the extra time?

As for the first, there is some evidence that Saddam actually thought that he WAS hiding something (and, for all we know, he might have been). And, if the deadline in 1441 was arbitrary, there would have been little or no problem with extending it another 3 months.

I can buy that Saddam thought he was hiding something. Or that he was trying to look like he was hiding something.

But when the inspection team is saying that he isn't and that he's bluffing, it kind of makes you look stupid

The problem was that the deadline was not at all arbitrary. Essentially, the forces needed to go into Iraq could not do so between April and August, for a large number of physical reasons that have been well documented (but, if anybody wants to just bust balls rather than have a serious discussion, I will look up sources for you). The U.S. had troops at the ready, prepared to either invade, or leave. They were NOT prepared to sit around until September, nor could they have been redeployed, and then brought back. So Bush was backed into a corner: Invade with whatever allies we could get, or give up entirely, giving a major impression of U.S. weakness at a time where such an impression would probably result in large numbers of American deaths around the world.

I hadn't heard that about the timeline which I guess obviously means that I'm just here to bust balls. But since I don't want to admit it, don't bother look up those sources.

However, I do have two "real" disagreements.

First, a number of those forces were from Afghanistan or could have been used there which was known to have been a sponsor of terrorism and wasn't pacified. And pulling them has contributed to the situation there deteriorating and the Taliban retaking power. That may well have been inevitable since nation-building isn't a snap, especially from scratch. But it means that we went from making one bad bet to making two really bad bets and hoping to win big.

The second disagreement is your claim that backing down results in the appearance of American weakness and tons of American deaths around the world. How do you think we look now? Sure, we took out Saddam, but we don't control Iraq. If anything, it's more obvious that we don't know how to handle terrorism because we've completely flopped on taking care of the insurgents and terrorists. But I haven't seen any reports of a massive increase in American deaths abroad. Do the 2,000 al-Qaeda in Iraq, helping to keep that pot boiling over, fatally weaken their ability to strike at Americans anywhere else?

That might well be what Bush believes, but that's not an argument for why we should go in. That's just saying that Bush doesn't have a credible view of the situation.

[bartl]

France and Germany already had a dominant position in the EU, and they still are the big cheeses there. How would us going to Iraq negate that?

Yes, I see how well they managed to get the EU Constitution to pass.

Russia is well on its way to having hegemony over the EU, gathering near-total energy control over the continent.

[Charles RB]

Yes, I see how well they managed to get the EU Constitution to pass.

One thing failed a vote domestically in france? Big whoop - look at a lot more legislation French and German MEPs do get passed and legislation that benefits them.

Russia is well on its way to having hegemony over the EU, gathering near-total energy control over the continent.

What's this got to do with French & German domination of the EU and the UK joining w/ America in Iraq to negate it?

[bartl]

First, a number of those forces were from Afghanistan or could have been used there which was known to have been a sponsor of terrorism and wasn't pacified. And pulling them has contributed to the situation there deteriorating and the Taliban retaking power. That may well have been inevitable since nation-building isn't a snap, especially from scratch. But it means that we went from making one bad bet to making two really bad bets and hoping to win big.

Strategically speaking, Afghanistan is a horrible place from which to base a war. It has defensive capabilities that make Switzerland look like Emmentaller, but holding Afghanistan by an outside power is more or less impossible without killing every man, woman, and child in the country (and the Soviet Union proved that even that policy wasn't terribly effective). The U.S.'s biggest mistake in Afghanistan was to consider the phony war on drugs to be more important than the real war against fundamentalist jihadists.

Iraq, on the other hand, was ideally situated. In addition, in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Al Queda troops were rushing over to Iraq. This is not to say that the U.S. didn't screw up royally in Iraq; they did. For example, the military did not recognize what military and political strategists recognized almost as soon as the Iraqi army folded; that the troops were not defeated, but simply retreated to a position where they could use the defense against which the United States has still found itself to be completely ineffective; the use of humans and sacred buildings as shields.

Another important issue was the complete barring of Baathists from participating in the new government, when most of the low-level management expertise was in this group, and, below a certain level, they were pretty much no different from any other civil service workers.

The second disagreement is your claim that backing down results in the appearance of American weakness and tons of American deaths around the world. How do you think we look now? Sure, we took out Saddam, but we don't control Iraq. If anything, it's more obvious that we don't know how to handle terrorism because we've completely flopped on taking care of the insurgents and terrorists. But I haven't seen any reports of a massive increase in American deaths abroad. Do the 2,000 al-Qaeda in Iraq, helping to keep that pot boiling over, fatally weaken their ability to strike at Americans anywhere else?

As I have mentioned, we have been screwing up royally in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus appears to know what he's doing, but, unless we can get around the problem of human shields, we might as well hand the keys to the country over to them, because until we do, we cannot win (and I would certainly prefer a solution which does not consider the human shields to be corpses). However, ever since Reagan took our troops out of Lebanon in 1983, we have been sending a message to the fundamentalist jihadists: Kill a few Americans, and the U.S. will give you anything you want. After 9/11, Bush, as well as many others, felt that we could not afford to keep giving that message (although the Senate Democrats appear to feel differently, although they are hedging their bets, by passing a resolution against a strategy, but unanimously approving the author of that strategy as commanding general in Iraq).

Now, as far as Al Qaeda in Iraq goes, part of what is happening is that the well-trained soldiers are being killed off, and replaced with untrained troops (the major factor working against that is the Iranian army providing replacements, one of the reasons why something has to be done to stop it; the best solution I have heard so far is a blockade of Iran, not allowing goods in or out until they pull back their troops). It's not quite "fighting them there so that we don't have to fight them here" as it is "draining their resources there to limit their ability to fight us here."

By the way, one reason why I didn't want to post the data on the physical necessity of attacking by mid-April was because most of my sources, such as STRATFOR, are commercial in nature and therefore do not have archives that can be easily and freely accessed, meaning that I would have to do the research from scratch to find more available sources, which anybody else here can do. I felt that if someone did not know of the sources, it means that they didn't even try to find them, themselves. If someone had said, for example, "I've been trying to find backup for your claim, and can't find it." that's a different story.

But, luckily, I have some time, now, so I will do some independent research, and I will detail how I did it, for the benefit of others.

Well, I have an AP story from early 2003 where members of the military say that invasion during the summer would be difficult, but not impossible, but does imply that we would have to rely more on individual soldiers than machiines, which would greatly increase the deathrate of our military. Check out the November, 2002 entry here, as well. I'll keep on looking. As I feared, most of the references I have found are on pay-only sites (like the New York Times archives).

[bartl]

What's this got to do with French & German domination of the EU and the UK joining w/ America in Iraq to negate it?

It has to do with the Russian semi-alliance with France and Germany, where they very successfully played both sides of the street, and ended up on top.

It is ALL linked together. World events do not happen in a vacuum.

[Iangould]

Russia is well on its way to having hegemony over the EU, gathering near-total energy control over the continent.

Yes just as Venezuela , Mexico and Saudi Arabia have hegemony over the US.

[Drew Van T.]

At best, Russia's energy policy gives them some extra diplomatic leverage over Europe. They can raise the price of their gas, sure, but to really turn that into a tool of political power that affects the EU (as opposed to affecting the small satellite states around them), they have to be willing to go as far as turning off the gas supply completely (as Hugo Chavez sometimes threatens he is willing to do with the oil supply of the USA).

And Russia will never go that far, because they need the money. China and India may be hungry for more energy, but they can't pay the same price for it, not yet. Putin is smart enough to know that brutal poker play like that will destroy his leverage.

So is Europe worried about its Russian gas supply? Somewhat, but let's not exaggerate.

In any event, most countries are returning to nuclear power and actively looking for other alternatives that will minimize the impact of whatever Russia does with its energy policies.

[plainbrownwraper]

Wow... I'm aghast at Mr. Grants views of Iran's offer to "help" deal with Iraq before the invasion.
Iran knew before the war that they would be hurt if a democracy is set up in Iraq. While Iran might gain somewhat from Saddam's reign ending, they stood to be hurt much worse by any form of liberal or democratic reforms next door trickling into the mindset of their people (which we are starting to see anyway in Iranian colleges).


To quote Mr. Grant "but when someone offers you everything you want, you at least hear them out".... Okay, Mr. Hitler is on line 1 and he says he wants to help. My point is, if you think you can depend on Iran, well you're in a dreamworld.

By the way... Iran is upsetting the UN by refusing to let inspectors into their country to see if their nuclear program is being used for weapons... THAT'S EXACTLY what Saddam did that led us down the path to war. Had Saddam let in the inspectors (instead of waiting three months to dismantle his program in secret) we would have never went into Iraq. Now Iran is doing the exact same thing... but somehow some element of people out there thinks we should have trusted Iran to help stop Iraq from doing the exact same thing Iran is doing now... WTF??? Now some people want us to meet with Syria and Iran to get their views on how to settle things down in Iraq--what kind of things, how about things like the Iranian weapons that Iraqi militias are using to kill our soldiers. But we're supposed to trust the people who are arming the people shooting at us????? Insanity. Pure insanity.

Among the many, many mistakes the wing nuts made in prosecuting this war, and in doing it the way they did, the failure to develop a coalition - no wait, they outright spurning of offers to help - Iran and Syria, who I believe offered us al-Zarqawi whom they were keeping tabs on - this is like five years ago - but also NATO, etc., has to a large extent encouraged and sustained the insurgancy, who suddenly smelled blood.

If Bush had simply announced "we're gonna take this oil, so fuck you, we don't want share anyway", the administrations intentions could not have been clearer. This was instrumental in creating the psychological climate for international rejection of - whatever it was we were trying to do - it went rapidly downhill from that point on.

It turned from a humanitarian effort with broad international support to us getting grabby. You can argue that this wasn't the administrations intention, blah, blah, but it's moot: that's the perception that was created.

Of all his considerable mistakes: failing to establish order following the collapse of the Iraqi military, doling out contracts to his corporate donars (who can't or won't satisfy their terms) while Iraqi's twiddled their thumbs, unemployed amidst a werecked infrastructire, leaving the Shieks out of the negotiations, etc., coalition building may be the only thing that can be rectified at this late date.

Nobody is mentioning it, but there is a small window of opportunity to try and re-establish a multinational, coalition approach, and frankly, it's the only chance of pulling a success out of this mess, which was probobly only a 50/50 proposition to begin with, if the administration had done everything right.

As for Iran and Syria, ever heard the phrase 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer"? In fact, neither Iran or Syria were our enemies when they offered to help: Iran wanted in on the Afghan oil pipline dealand was hungry for international legitimacy and Syria has it's own problems with fundamentalists and was also interested in joining the internatioanl community - it was after this point that the hand puppet made his moronic "Axis of Evil" speech - he backed them into a corner- nobody ever told you about cornered animals I guess. IN a very real sense, Bush left them no choice but to oppose us, and and now you're whining like a bunch of little bitches that it's our fault for pointing out the mistake to begin with.

I think you guys read too many comic books.

[Rorysm]

For those of you who have fallen into the democratic-led revisionist history of Saddam and his WMD's, here's some articles you've let your mind forget about...

This one is about Saddam shipping out the WMD's and such...
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtri...raq_06_11.html

Here's one about the ones he sent to trash dumps in the Netherlands...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1149454/posts

For fun, here's President Clinton's speech in 1998 where he accused Iraq of trying to get NUCLEAR weapons...
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middl...ton_12-16.html



As for Iran... we haven't had regular diplomatic relations with them sense they disposed their leader, took Americans hostage, and pretty much opposed anything resembling human rights in the Middle East.