It is difficult to begin a discussion about the relationship of American foreign policy without first emphasizing the relationship of the Bush Administration to the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
I have never quite wrapped my mind around the continued (fanatical) support of a Labour Party PM in a phoney Axis of Democracy with a Neoconservative such as Bush.
Sunni Pakistan and Sunni Saudi Arabia allied with the Coalition to depose Sunni Iraq then install Shiite Iraq allegianced to Shiite Iran and then threaten to attack Shiite Iran.
Whew! This is the kind of stuff the British Empire was built on.
President Bush has talked about mistakes his administration committed in Iraq. He doesn’t specify, so we should assume that one of them is invading Iraq under false pretexts. Or that after the invasion the Iraqi Army, the security forces and many government leaders and autocrats were dismissed overnight, and let go with their expertise, secrets and guns? Or was the biggest mistake, after the invasion, turning the government over to people who are known to be Iranian agents like Ahmad Chalabi, Al-Jafari, Al-Hakim and Al-Maliki?
Today, some 150,000 American soldiers, not including the 20,000 extra troops due soon, are virtual hostages in Iraq. With the stroke of a Fatwah, Tehran can, in a minute, put them all in jeopardy. The Iraqi Shiite militias as well as the sectarian government, the US-trained police and the rest of the Ministry of Interior forces are all loyal to Tehran.
This has caused many Sunni Saudis concern and outrage over the single handed give away in Sunni Iraq to Shia Iranian interests while demonizing and sabre rattling against Tehran. Cheney's speculated visit last month to Saudi Arabia underscored the rumors of wealthy Saudis financing the Sunni Insurgency in Baghdad. We will have to assume some hidden friends-foes understanding if we are to explain the unexplainable in American foreign policy. Take for example, calling Iran the axis of evil, then delivering Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon to her on a silver plate a la Hezbollah. Al-Maliki, like Ibrahim Al-Jafari before him, came from Iran.
In the card game of hearts, one of the strategies is to hold as many high cards in one suit, unload the weak suits and then shoot for the moon. Many of us fear that Iran is holding the ace of hearts and President Bush is about to shoot his wad so to speak.( I'm not sure that I wanted that metaphor to stick.)
Politics is a confusing business. Its games have few rules and its cards are mostly dealt under the table. What we see is hardly what we get. The clearest rule is attributed to the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: There are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests.
Is this a game of divide and conquer? Did we bring Saddam and the Sunnis to power only to have it backfire and now we are bringing the Shites and Iran to power only to bring them down too?
It is ironic that Bush now uses the very chaos and the rise of Islamic extremism for which he is responsible as an excuse for continuing the war he started.
Too many ironies...too many questions... too many magic tricks and sleight of hand.
Now I know why they always take the Joker out of the deck.