Jake - as to the Kurds and Turkey - my suggestion is that the US change its policy. Why not stress our relations with Turkey? What have they done for us lately? They need us far more than we need them.
And the Iranians? The vast majority can be swayed - the vast majority of the US thought the Vietnam and current Iraq wars were good ides - for a time. Many Iranians do think we should be friends. Besudes, I don’t care what the people think - I care what their leaders think. Many a deal has been made in this world.
It could be more obvious that your claim is true - Splitting the country means annexing to other countries - not letting these groups drift about aimlessly.
Xunzian - regular election cycles didn’t prevent long -term policies during the Cold War or the US policy toward Israel. It can be donbe, if we want it to be done.
I think both are reflective of short term goals that are rather persistent. Fear of “The Reds” was heavily indoctrinated into the American populace, so playing that card was always a winner. It is like the War on Terror right now, the Right needs an enemy, a source of fear, to have meaning. The policy towards Israel is slightly more complicated, but not really. At the end of the day, we own Israel. Conspiracy theorists like to talk about how “Zionists control US politics” and that is absolutely backwards. Look at the flow of money. The US owns Israel. The US doesn’t own any other country in the ME. We support Turkey, but they’d survive without us. We are supporting Iraq, but they want to survive without us! Only with Israel is the relationship so mutually supportive as to be irrevocable. And since we routinely have interests in the ME (oil), having a friend who is absolutely our bitch really, really helps.
Is it conspiracy-nuttish to suggest that we’ve won a chance to spread our economy? To allow big corporations to start building in Iraq for more profits? Isn’t that what we usually mean when we say we’re spreading democracy?
I mean, I’m sure that’s not the only reason, but it can’t hurt.
OK, so let’s say my short-term goal is for my girlfriend not to break up with me. Because housing would be a real problem if that happened.
While my relationship with my girlfriend is ever-changing, I’m willing to advocate various appeasement policies (some of them self-contradictory, such as my pledges to both ‘love and accept her no matter what’, and ‘to help her lose weight’). As long as those elements aren’t in conflict, everything gravy. As soon as they do, you’d better believe I’ll explain the ‘bad’ one in terms of the ‘good’ one until it blows over. And then I’ll go back to my both-at-once policy.
That makes no sense to me, Faust. If it was all that easy, why did Khomeini come to power in the first place? Why have elections anywhere? Why no just replace Bush with McCain and be done with it? Or do you think Americans, as masses, are fundamentally different than Iranians?
Also, I know the Turks want to be a member of the European Union - I know little of their relationship with the US. It seems likely they want to keep the US a friend, but what exactly are you doing for them? I just don’t know. But they will not let Kurdistan split off, they’d much sooner annex Iraqi Kurdistan. Both of these scenario’s would guarantee an endless war. The Kurdish-Turkish relationship is about as bad as these things get.
Khomeini came to power becasue we weren’t paying attention - and neither was the Shah. He allowed the populace to become educated. The crucial element here is not that the Ayatollah was a theocrat, but that he wasn’t our guy. Bush got elected by right-wing theocrats. The right-wing theocrats weren’t 100% of the population here, and they aren’t in Iran.
There are essentially two viable models for the US empire - the British and the Dutch. We need to get back on track and re-employ the dutch model - it suits the extant conditions better and is cheaper. In much of the world, we do use the dutch model - but once again, we panicked in the middle east, and chose the british way.
If oil is 65 dollars a barrell, then the Iranians would sell Iraqi oil for how much?
Answer: 65 dollars.
Who cares about the rest?
Let them all slaughter each other. As long as we don’t pay for the bandaids.
If the US weren’t so self-righteous, my taxes would be a lot lower.
I suppose a “win” is relative. Relative to now, security is a win. Relative to 6 years ago, nothing.
I suppose as a country we should focus on the situation we’re in now. There isn’t a point to looking back. Bush is right about that., of course he is the one who fucked up, but he is right.