2007-02-16

Bush, Iran, and the house of Saud

From my post over on gristmill.org:

Sounds like the administration is cooking up a scheme to engage the Iranian military in hostilities. That makes zero sense. The country is riven by at least two more or less distinct conflicts: the Shiia-Sunni civil war, and the anti-U.S. insurgency.

The latter is a largely Sunni phenomenon. With the 2003 invasion, the U.S. pushed the Sunnis out of power and "liberated" the Shiite majority, who now control the central government. The anti-U.S. resistance has been largely Sunni-led.

The question becomes, who is funding the Sunni insurgency? Probably not U.S. arch-enemy Iran; that nation is populated, and controlled, mainly by Shiites.

More likely, the money that's bolstering the resistance is coming from staunch U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government is Sunni-dominated and has already publicly announced its intention to fund Sunni militias if Bush can't bring the Shiite government to heel.

It will be remembered, I hope, that Bush marketed the Iraq war as a response to the Sept. 11 attacks. He never explained why invading Iraq made sense as a response to a crime committed largely by a bunch of Saudis.

Now, he seems to be gearing up for a move to attack Iran, even though, again, the real problem seems to lie in Saudi Arabia. It's hard to figure out what he hopes to achieve from such a move, beyond yet more chaos and killing. Enough. It's time for Congress to defund the war, and demand a regional summit aimed at ending the Shiite-Sunni conflict that Bush seems bent on escalating.

1 comment:

Paul Hue said...

1. Bush did explain why 911 justified invading Iraq and planting there a free market democracy: economyhttp://reformedleftist.blogspot.com/2006/10/bushs-iraq-in ...

2. Under what pretext would Bush have implemented such a plan on Saudi Arabia? That some of its citizens without government support had attacked the US?

3. Isn't Syria supporting the Sunni tyrants attacking US forces?

4. I also don't understand why the Shia tyrants are attacking the US forces who made their tyranny possible in the first place. But my friends serving over there are certain that the missles and other munitions coming out of Sadr city are (a) fired by Shia and (b) provided by Iran.