One of the things I have tried to point out is the mistake many people are making right now of compartmentalizing the various hot spots in the Middle East. Journalists, pundits, editorialists and politicians all seem to be able to treat Lebanon as a discreet point. Palestinian problems as another. Iraq as yet another. Syria and Iran, both different. All discreet separate elements, not related to one another.
I think that is both wrong and ultimately counterproductive.
So now I read this article in the Washington Post and despair. Doesn't anyone see the hand of Iran here? Doesn't anyone notice that the "Shi'ite Giant" is doing exactly what Iran wants it to do right now?
Sadr's followers answer as one when his movement calls them, and his organization of social, religious, political and military programs — as well as the young clerics, politicians and fighters around him — has become the most pivotal force in Iraq after the United States.
Millions of Sadr's supporters turned out in December elections to give his movement the largest bloc in parliament, which in turn put him in control of four government ministries. Thousands of male followers abandoned their homes and jobs when a bomb destroyed a Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22, rallying at Sadr headquarters on a night and day of retaliatory bloodletting that plunged Iraq into sectarian war.
While opposition to the U.S. military presence in Iraq remains one of its core tenets, the Sadr movement's militia, called the Mahdi Army, took heavy casualties in two military uprisings against better-armed, better-trained U.S. forces in 2004. Today, according to Sadr leaders and outside analysts, the movement is husbanding its strength and waiting for American troops to go.
Sadr "clearly is the most potent political figure, and the most popular one," in Iraq, said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "Unless directly provoked, Sadrists will lay low, because they know the Americans' time in Iraq is coming to an end," he said. "Why would they risk another major loss of fighters if it's not necessary? Americans in their eyes are already defeated — they're going to leave."
Do you see the damage that is done in attacking the president of your country? It does not harm him or the Republican party only – it harms America. It emboldens a thug with poor hygiene habits to pull the strings of his puppets to go further and further. They already see the last helicopter – they were counting on the American left to make it happen.
We have got to face Iran down now or it will be incredibly ugly in a very short time. The world is running out of time. Sadr and his followers are puppets doing a dance for their Iranian masters. It isn't a discreet event.
It is part of a single strategy.
Of course Iran is influencing a neighboring country; after all both are shiite ruled countries. But this idea of Iran being a “puppet master” seems over the top — Sadr is a religious nut, and religous nuts don’t typically tow the line like a puppet – Whatever he does is for his own (and his God’s) best interest. We’ve seen this with Sadr in the past.
And this “know your place, shut your face” no criticism of the President is wholly unAmerican. There was no shortage of open criticism of Clinton by Republicans when he bombed Iraq in response to treaty violations.
But if things aren’t going as wished (I can’t say as planned, as I’ve never actually seen a plan) in Iraq, don’t blame people’s right to ask why Americans have to die there as some driver as to why Iraq is failing. Iran’s influence should have been expected.
Just so we have it out on the table: Should America invade Iran? Is that what you’re preparing us for? I hope people will look on a map and see the size of Iraq and the size of Iran.
“preparing us for”? You have either got a wildly inflated sense of this blog’s power and reach or you are completely out of your mind.
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A. The leadership of Iran are religious nuts of the same stripe.
B. Don’t people like you constantly tell everyone that President Bush is a religious nut who follows the orders of other religious nuts?
C. Glassification ends the problem, not to be desired but surely seems the end game.
QM
PS: Gaius, Mr. Franklin seems to have twigged to the plan. Should he be reported to the Zio-Nazi Masters?
My secret identity is blown? Oh no. Tell Rove to meet me at the brush pile!
Stuart Mackenzie: Well, it’s a well known fact, Sunny Jim, that there’s a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows.
Tony Giardino: So who’s in this Pentavirate?
Stuart Mackenzie: The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds, *and* Colonel Sanders before he went tits up. Oh, I hated the Colonel with is wee *beady* eye! And that smug look on his face, “Oh, you’re gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhhh!”
(‘So I Married An Axe Murderer’, quoted from IMDb.com)
Gaius, did you take Colonel Sanders’ place? Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things?
Didn’t you get the memo?
I figured you all were part of the neoconservative Illuminati, because you keep alluding to an Islamo-Illuminati headquartered in Iran (see the post where all the random data points point to an Iranian Puppet master). North Korea is a puppet of Iran, right? None dare call it a conspiracy! John Birch call your office.
It is curious that the neo-conservative “Rightroots Independents(tm)” blogs seem to follow similar talking points. Better hurry up and get that Iran invasion in before the fall elections.
Just keep on being useful, Bill.
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> Just keep on being useful, Bill.
I was just keeping with the level of the comments. Here’s something notable: Where did Iran get a nuclear reactor and the weapons grade uranium to run it? I’ll save you the research:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/chi-060823iran,0,1434982.story?coll=sfla-newsnation-front
So, like Iraq, like Al-Quaeda, Iran is now a threat because we armed them. These three ‘distinct data points’ point to a trend that isn’t being reported in the MSM – *We create our enemies*, and the miliatry industrial complex profits nicely: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=LMT&t=2y
Please ignore the dead Americans and billions of tax payer dollars spent in this perpetual war enterprise. Profits are up handsomely, thanks to that big debt your children will have to pay off some day.
You know many things yet know very little, Jim. Do you understand what a research reactor is? This one is rated at 5 MWt.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/tehran-tnrc.htm
Such reactors are tiny and a whole lot of American colleges own one.
It’s true, the more you know, the more you realize how little you know.
Who cares about the size? Can this reactor be used to further enrich unranium to make a weapons grade high yield product? And the 10 pounds of highly enriched uranium we gave them? Can that be used in a nuclear weapon or enriched using this reactor? Unlike most conservatives, I know I know very little – perhaps you can enlighten us, Giaus.
No it cannot be used to produce additional material. It carries a tiny amount (10 pounds of uranium is very small indeed) of enriched uranium. No more can be added. The reactor vessel, if this is like the ones I am familiar with (it should be, it’s about the same vintage) is about the size of a trash can. These are most useful in radioisotope production, if anything, and were really designed as a training tool.
> Do you understand what a research reactor is?
Just what Spacewar said about them:
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Uranium_Enrichment_At_Heart_Of_Iran_Nuclear_Dispute_999.html
“The UN nuclear watchdog is concerned about the risk of diversion of nuclear materials as the reaserch reactor could produce 8-10 kilograms (about 20 pounds) of plutonium a year, enough to make at least two nuclear bombs.”
Conflation – that is not the same research reactor – read it again. They are talking about a heavy water reactor.