Say Anything Blog

Sparkie:
Obviously you think we still control the situation in Iraq.  I think it’s gotten well beyond that.
However, we should talk to Syria and try to woo them away from Iran.

gregdn
Obviously nothing I think has been evidenced so far right here. Lets begin…
We are closer to Iran than we are to Syria. Syria is afriad of Iran and the like because of their ‘sectarian’ status.
Whatever we do I know we will never be able to take Syria down… despite what Mike Ledeen might encourage… I think we have overlooked a big ally and a inroad to many other aspects of diplomacy with the Islamic world with Syria. We are way way way too buddy buddy with Israel, the bunch of Russian & Romanian kooks… they should have gotten a large chunk of Bavarian wilderness.

Sparkie:
Ledeen would have us take on the entire ME.
What do you think of what has been leaked from the Baker commission?

I think we are looking for a way to save face. I think they are looking for stability to extract more $$$ out of the area. I also think we are trying to compartmentalize the area so we can point at certain groups and say “look, they can’t behave”.
Unfortunately at this point, slippage as far as letting Iran and whoever else into that area will just escalate the long term war on terror as Isreal is further encroached upon… we shouldn’t care, but we have a real soft spot for defending a bunch of Russains and Romanians squatting on the edge of the Mediterranean… maybe because they have operatives throughout our gov’t… whose offices were the origins of much of the push to invade Iraq (yea you know who). Saddam turned out to be quite a nice buffer and we are incapable of replicating the manner in which he kept Iran out of the greater middle east.
I’m sure Saudi Arabia is cracking their knuckles and getting excited about all the madrasas and terror camps they can set up in Iraq soon, using all the money we give them at the gas pump.

It’ll be interesting to see if any of the recommendations Baker will come up with will be acted on.  It’s kind of like Bush41 and the other ‘adults’ are upset with the way Junior’s handled the situation.

Yea. Personally I think Bush Sr. is a genius when contrasted with his son. Everyone gets down on him for not finishing the job in Iraq and encouraging that uprising that Saddam put down (which, interestingly enough, isn’t mentioned too much in his trial) without supporting it militarily… I don’t think he had the right mandate to do that at that point in time and I think he did the ‘democratic’ thing, however much we grumble in retrospect.

Great idea, sparkie.  The first thing we should ask Assad is where he is hiding all the WMDs that were ship to Syria by Saddam.  I’m sure that in the spirit of friendship he will want to cooperate.

Ahhhh… see here. Maybe we’ll let him use those WMDs you speak of on Amabamadinajihadi…

US media are now reporting one of Baker’s main recommendations will be for the US to promote more involvement in Iraq by Syria and Iran (see “US panel to popos ra policy U-turn” Timesonline, 17 October 06). As we know, Iran is already heavily involved in Iraq’s internal affairs and is now moving to annex southeastern Iraq, with US acquiescence. Iran has also armed and trained the Badr Brigades, an Iraqi Shiite militia under Iran’s direct control that has infiltrated the upper echelons of Iraq’s security forces, again with US acquiescence.

While the US has encouraged a strong Iranian presence in Iraq, as well as US power sharing with the pro-Iran and pro-Iraqi partition SCIRI party, the US has, until now, discouraged Syrian support for Iraq’s Sunni’s and for Muqtada al-Sadr, an Iraqi militia leader who is anti-Iran and in favor of preserving a unified Iraqi state.

Syria’s low profile in Iraq is about to change, thanks to Jim Baker and the report of the Iraq study group. In other words, the Real War between Syria and Iran for control of Iraq is about to begin .

Yea. I don’t know about that site and I didn’t check out the TimesOnline source or anything… I don’t think the Scott Sullivan on the Iran-Watch site is this Scott Sullivan, merely amusing himself from jail, but it could be....

See here too.