Iraq and Ping-Pong Diplomacy

The American Thinker ^ | 11 30 05 | Tom Milstein

[Kitten Festival]

To get out of Iraq, first we must first know why we are in Iraq.

We did not invade Iraq to find Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction.

We did not invade Iraq to establish democracy in the Middle East. We invaded Iraq to deter Saudi Arabia and its client, Islamic Fascism, from staging more 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Of course, nobody in a position of power will say so, but we invaded Iraq mainly to deter the predominant source of money and manpower used to attack us on 9/11: Saudi Arabia and its client, Islamic Fascism.

We invaded Iraq because Iraq shares a border with Saudi Arabia, and has a history of military antagonism to the United States. We are in Iraq for much the same reason we remained in West Germany during the Cold War: to establish a base of operations for the maintenance of deterrence against a perceived threat to the security of the United States. The scope and scale of the Saudi threat are of a different order than that of the Soviets. But the strategic principle is the same.

[ClaireSolt]

The same goes for Iran & Syria. We are developing interoperable armed allies in Afghanistan and Iraq. It does seem to be helping loosen things up across the Mid East and facilitate liberalization many places.

[Names Ash Housewares]

We did not invade Iraq.

We liberated it.

And we liberated it for *many* reasons. ALL Valid. ALL in themselves reason enough to remove madman Saddam.

And THAT is what must be repeated and understood over and over again to understand that we dont need to "get out" of Iraq. That we WILL walk away from a JOB COMPLETED of bringing democracy to a part of the world where it is sorely needed. And that job is getting done. With no thanks to the MSM and the support of precious few democrats.

[GermanBusiness]

The article you just posted is precisely the whole point of the Iraq War.

I have long posted on any website that will take comments that Reason #1 for the Iraq War was to give the Sunnis a new enemy to threaten their existence more than our nukes seemed to.

#2 was the Flypaper Strategy
#3 was to take $20B/yr in oil away from the Sunnis
#4 was to democratize the Mideast so they could argue with each other and see threats from within, not without

But #1 has always been to pit the Shiites against Mekkah.

The left and, it seems, Al Jazeera haven't fathomed this yet. Except France just said US troops need to stay in Iraq (to protect the Sunnis no doubt).

We could actually start to pullout tomorrow and the insurgents would suddenly go "wait a minute, come back!! we need you to protect us!"

[humint]

This is a very interesting analysis! Thanks for posting it. If we follow this author’s approach and Iraq is to be our base of operations to defeat the Wahhabis then pulling our troops out would be an extraordinarily bad idea. However I do see a problem with this approach. The products we anticipate from the surmised theological competition between Karbala and Qom, the religious centers of Iraq and Iran respectively, are unlikely to be allied to the interests of the United States. With the likes of:

• IRAQ -“Muqtada al-Sadr has recently emerged as a Muslim Shia leader who vociferously rejects the US-led occupation in Iraq. He is seen by many Shia and politicians as a zealous leader who has chosen the wrong time for this escalation of protests.
• IRAQ - Abdol-Aziz al-Hakim “When U.S. forces seized control of one of the Interior Ministry's buildings in the Jaderiya region near the official headquarters of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq [SCIRI], led by Abdol-Aziz al-Hakim, they found prisoners who were suffering from malnutrition and on some of whose bodies, signs of torture could be seen”.
• IRAN -Mahmood Ahmadinejad: "To those who doubt, to those who ask is it possible, or those who do not believe, I say accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible."

We should expect horribly anti-American policies from the Shiite alliance if men like these continue their ascension to power. Add to that, massive oil reserves under the authority of these vehemently anti-American men. Their logic reveals a competition that would likely result in a scuttled world economy, just to spite the “Great Satan”. At least for now, I suggest we keep the ping-pong table in the basement…