Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Iran-ing It

Reading an excellently recently written writing of Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker about Iran and Iraq was most informative! He believes that the - "scare them about the Nuclear Threat" - strategy related to Iran has failed with the USian public. Now, he indicates there is an effort to convince us "uninformed folks" that there is a great terrorist threat - Al Quaida - based coming from Iran.

Hersh points out the internal contradictions in current U.S. policy and how so much is trying to get the political spin right (what else is new!). Supporting the Iraqi Government is supporting Shiite leadership which is allied (somewhat at least) with Iraq. Iranians have strong economic and religious ties to Iraq - going to shrines in Iraq, etc. - based to a significant degree on the facts that Iran is a Shiite country and Iraq's largest population is also Shiite.

We are also pushing the supposed success of alliances with Sunni forces outside of the Shiite Areas of Iraq. Purportedly we are getting these forces to turn against Al Quaida. The problem with this is that - much of the end result is - ethnic cleansing - of Shiites from Sunni areas and vice versa.

We are pushing supposedly for a unified government and a single country remaining, while our actions in many ways may lead towards partition into 3 separate countries.

From Hersh's picture, which seems well thought out and researched, it seems obvious that US policy remains confused and not thought out, as it has always been in Iraq. One can only hope that "the politicians" - will heed the warnings and help prevent Bush, Cheney, etc. - from attacking Iran before the 2008 Election.

Thanks!

No comments: