Friday, April 18, 2008

Iran, Iraq, and the region in general


Professor Juan Cole reports:
Secretary of State Condi Rice wants the Arab states to shield Iraq from Iran's "nefarious influence." Rice seems unaware that she has installed in Baghdad parties like the Islamic Mission Party (al-Da'wa) and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) that are very close to Tehran, and that Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia advised her not [to] invade Iraq because this would happen. And Sunnis, Salafis and Wahhabis would dissuade Iraq's Shiite majority from good relations with their Iranian Shiite neighbors . . . how? Whenever I hear Bush administration officials say something about the Middle East, it is as though I am listening to bad fiction read with a drunken slur. Opinion polling does not find that the Arab publics are afraid of or worried about Iran in any numbers, and in fact Israel's attack on largely defenseless little Lebanon in 2006 made Iran and Hizbullah more popular in the region.
[Emphasis mine]

I cringe every time I see a headline or paragraph starting out with Rice's name. I just assume either a gross lie or some stupidity with very bad consequences is coming next.

Btw, Stanford will probably take her back so they can have bragging rights against Cal, with its John Yoo. The Torture Twins of the Bay Area. Sigh.

Why do we have idiots running this country?

[That's a rhetorical question. You don't have to depress me by answering.]

UPDATE:
Speaking of reality checks, Cole also noted this at the top of his post:
A suicide bombing at a funeral for pro-American militiamen in a village northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province killed at least 60 persons on Thursday and wounded a similar number. This attack follows a previous bombing in the provincial capital of Baquba that had killed 60.

--the BB

3 comments:

Jane R said...

Hey, you left out the name of Israel as a country. It's that tiny little purple country wrapped around half of the West Bank (which is also bordered by Jordan).

Jane R said...

Meanwhile, I didn't know exactly where Qatar was, so thank you.

Paul said...

Well, I didn't but the map drawers did. Arab map, perhaps? My mind was focused on Iraq and Iran and I just grabbed the first uncluttered map I saw. No deliberate choice was involved, or I would have looked longer and used a "more complete" map. Didn't even look that closely, obviously.

But now the question of where is my Israeli flag pin will arise and I'm toast in the elections.

So it goes.