What we do with despots

POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 19:33
VIEWED: 7760
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FINN MAC CUMHAL

Tuesday, March 22, 2005 5:42 AM

On Iran/Iraq Coalition? I think it is likely that a democratic Iraq will share many similar ideologies with Iran largely due to the Shia majority. Though I’m not sure that religion is enough to bring these two countries together. Shiite religious beliefs not withstanding, there is still a strong ethnic division between the Persian Iranians and Arabic Iraqis. If Shiite Iraq was going to defect to Iran I would have expected that such a defection would have been more likely during the Iran-Iraq War. Despite Hussein’s oppression of the Shiites, they still fought against the Iranians for eight years, so I think the Shiite Iraqis are certainly as much Iraqi nationalists as they are Shiites, and not likely to simply adopt an Iranian or even a Persio-Iraqi nationality. Furthermore, while Iran is certainly a Shiite nation, I don’t believe its religious government experiences wide support from the people of Iran, and I don’t think that on average, even religious Iraqi Shiites, are likely to share much more then a spiritual agreement with the leadership of Iran. If one could expect that the Shiite religion were influential enough to completely obscure national, political and ethnic lines between Iraq and Iran, (or indeed between Iran, Iraq and Syria) then one might ask why such a huge socio-political rift exists between the Kurds and Sunni Arabs. Religion is often brought up in the Middle East as a polarizing factor, but in practice it rarely represents the influence that I think it is given. True, the Middle East is a hotbed of religions extremism, and political policy within a nation is often attributed to Islamic religious doctrine, but international policy is still government by economics, nationality and political borders. There is plenty of Sunni and Shiite religious unity in the Middle East, yet that rarely translates into political cooperation between Arabs. (Jordanians (Sunni) oppressed Palestinians (Sunni). Syrian (Shiite ruling class) oppressed Lebanese (Shiites.))

In addition, the Shiites of Iraq represent only 60% of the nation, which is certainly a policy making majority, but not one that is likely to eclipse the Kurds or the Sunni Arabs, and they will certainly have something to say about an Iran/Iraq Coalition. Iraq may politically realign itself as an ally to Iran. Certainly there have been people in Iraq, (United Iraqi Alliance recently voted into power) who have demonstrated a relationship with Iran. But a Shiite-dominated democratic Iraq is not likely to be similar to the undemocratic Iran. In a worst case scenario might be something like an oppressive Shiite aristocracy taking control of the government and dissolving whatever democratic reform that may have developed, in favor of a theocracy. This threat has been something of specter for while now. In such case, Iran and Iraq may begin to look very similar from a US point of view. But even in that case, I still think it is not certain that there will be very much cooperation between Iran and Iraq. Stalinist Russia and Maoist China were, ideologically, quite similar, and so appeared to represent a cooperative threat to the West, but in reality, they were as likely to go to war with one another as with the US.

Why we should care? The short answer is that we are invested. The US and Britain have spent an enormous amount of political capital, resources and human life, liberating, stabilizing and hopefully democratizing Iraq to become a liberal independent nation. We aren’t going to do all that just to watch a dictatorial theocratic regime walk in and take it away. Most of the EU would support or even participate in the defense of Iraq for similar reasons. Of course I could be wrong. While the West has a strong tract record of supporting and encouraging the growth of democracy they do sometimes get caught in political and economic ‘ditches,’ for lack of better word. It’s more of a tendency then a strict policy. So if the West is ruled by a Chamberlain sort of philosophy then we may look the other way. But I

PIRATEJENNY

Tuesday, March 22, 2005 6:33 AM

Those pictures are just creepy
Rummy and all of them just smiling and patting eachother on the back

you know the blinders will have to come off slowly and painfully, most I'm sure will just embrace the hypocrisy and shrug their shoulders while they go on with their life

But this is what we are, what we've always been really, sure will denounce such behavior publically, while supporting it privately..only now their not really even trying to hide it..eat your heart out America

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Tuesday, March 22, 2005 2:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I hope your sister comes home safe.

Thank you. I'm sure she will.

RUE

Sunday, March 27, 2005 4:35 AM

I too think the US is too heavily invested in Iraq to walk away. But it's not for freedom, that's just sop for the mindless.

Quote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4354269.stm
Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq's Oil
by Greg Palast
The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.
Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protestors claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.
In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists."
"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.
Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.
...
Secret sell-off plan
The industry-favored plan (coup d'etat, replacing Hussein with a compliant leader) was pushed aside by yet another secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, which called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields. The new plan, crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas.
The sell-off was given the green light in a secret meeting in London headed by Ahmed Chalabi shortly after the US entered Baghdad, according to Robert Ebel. Mr. Ebel, a former Energy and CIA oil analyst, now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, flew to the London meeting, he told Newsnight, at the request of the State Department.
...
Privatization blocked by industry
Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA who took control of Iraq's oil production for the US Government a month after the invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme.
Mr Carroll told us he made it clear to Paul Bremer, the US occupation chief who arrived in Iraq in May 2003, that: "There was to be no privatization of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I was involved."
Ari Cohen, of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, told Newsnight that an opportunity had been missed to privatize Iraq's oil fields. He advocated the plan as a means to help the US defeat Opec, and said America should have gone ahead with what he called a "no-brainer" decision.
Mr Carroll hit back, telling Newsnight, "I would agree with that statement. To privatize would be a no-brainer. It would only be thought about by someone with no brain."
New plans, obtained from the State Department by Newsnight and Harper's Magazine under the US Freedom of Information Act, called for creation of a state-owned oil company favored by the US oil industry. It was completed in January 2004, Harper's discovered, under the guidance of Amy Jaffe of the James Baker Institute in Texas. Former US Secretary of State Baker is now an attorney. His law firm, Baker Botts, is representing ExxonMobil and the Saudi Arabian government.
Jaffe said "There is no question that an American oil company ... would not be enthusiastic about a plan that would privatize all the assets with Iraq companies and they (US companies) might be left out of the transaction."

View segments of Iraq oil plans at: www.GregPalast.com/opeconthemarch.html

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Sunday, March 27, 2005 5:08 AM

I'm not sure I would dismiss the value of democracy in Iraq as "sop for the mindless." I happen to believe that liberal governments are quite valuable, in terms of both freedom and economics. If the US were only interested in Iraqi oil, the hundreds of billions of dollars that have gone into liberating Iraq would have been put to better use buying Iraqi Oil and investing in Iraqi Oil fields.

RUE

Sunday, March 27, 2005 5:31 AM

Ah, yes. If only US companies had contracts with Iraq.

But the US and Britain (BP) were shut out of the Iraq oil business on account of their bombing to enforce the no-fly zone.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Sunday, March 27, 2005 5:47 AM

Once again, if the US were only interested in Iraqi Oil we wouldn't have put restrictions on US oil companies to begin with. In the end the US made the choices it made with regard to Iraq because, clearly, there were other things of interest then oil, which the US can, did and does get from many other countries besides Iraq. The “it’s all for oil” conspiracy theories just don’t hold water.

RUE

Sunday, March 27, 2005 6:10 AM

Quote:
if the US were only interested in Iraqi Oil we wouldn't have put restrictions on US oil companies to begin with.

I have NO idea what you mean by this. Do you mean before the war? (when the US was locked-out by Iraq.) Or do you think it was after the war? (Not then either - the US oil companies wanted national ownership to keep an in, AND to protect the price of oil.)
What ARE you referring to?

SIGNYM

Sunday, March 27, 2005 6:26 AM

WHOAA there! Let's take a couple of steps back. I prposed the scenario where Iran takes over Iraq, and Finn basically responded that the US and EU would respond militarily. But right now, I'm just trying to get Finn's ideas on WHY we would intervene. What would be the reason for jumping in, why wouldn't we just wait it out?

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Sunday, March 27, 2005 2:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I have NO idea what you mean by this. Do you mean before the war? (when the US was locked-out by Iraq.) Or do you think it was after the war? (Not then either - the US oil companies wanted national ownership to keep an in, AND to protect the price of oil.)What ARE you referring to?

I was about to ask you the same thing. You claimed that the US was “shut out” because of the “no-fly zones.” The first problem is that the US instigated the no-fly zones in order to protect Kurds and Shiites from Hussein. If you actually believed that the Oil was all the US was interested in then why would the US instigate the very thing you claimed was shutting us away from that Oil? Secondly, you have your facts wrong. Iraq was not shutting out anybody. The sell of Iraq Oil was administrated by the UN Oil-for-Food program, not Iraq, which seems to have sold oil rather more liberally then even their own regulations permitted. According to the USDoE, 20% of the US petroleum imports from the Persian Gulf (which includes Saudi Arabia) between 1996 and 2003 came form Iraq. That’s a pretty big chunk of oil for being shut out of the market, wouldn’t you think?

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