"Regardless of what we do, the Shia are going to take control."

Great Debates
1

Spencer Ackerman has published a letter from a junior officer in Iraq that summarizes almost exactly my take on the the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into:

  1. Saddam Hussein was a bastard but he was a valuable secular counterweight to Islamic fundamentalists in Iran. By removing him from power we strengthened their hand in the region.

  2. Whenever we pull out – now, ten years from now – the Shia will take over Iraq and turn it into a satellite of Iran. This will further strengthen the cause of Islamic fundamentalists.

  3. None of our current efforts in Iraq are geared toward preventing #2. They’re focused entirely on minimizing American casualties (which could be reduced to zero by just withdrawing) and maintaining the fiction that we’re fighting terrorists.

Continuing our occupation MIGHT make sense if we had a plan to prevent #2 from happening. But we don’t. It’s not even clear that a better outcome is possible given Iraq’s history and demographics. Without such a plan, every dollar and every life spent on Iraq will not change the final outcome one whit.

“Regardless of what we do, the Shia are going to take control.”

2

Funny, I thought that the country was going to tear into three pieces, only one of which would ally with or be absorbed by iran. But I’m pretty uninformed so I could easily be wrong.

3

Well of course it’s going to be taken over by the Shia. They are the majority and we are trying to install a democracy. There may also be a civil way where the Kurds and Sunnis try and stake out their own territory.

Bush probabaly thought they would all become Christians and Cheney just wants to up his props with the Devil by creating the worst poosible outcome he can think of.