I'll Tread On You If I Damned Well Want To
Sadly, the United States is being run by people who believe their own hype. We've already won the war in Iraq, the occupation has gone perfectly, we have successfully scared the North Koreans and the Iranians into completely capitulating to our every whim and the entire world knows they'd better not mess with us or we will, well, we'll...you know. It won't be pretty. Welcome to the Pax Americana, mothafuckaaa.
Viewing the War as a Lesson to the World
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, April 5 — Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any "hostile acts" they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation.
Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and went back to work.
It was a small but telling moment on the sidelines of the war. For a year now, the president and many in his team have privately described the confrontation with Saddam Hussein as something of a demonstration conflict, an experiment in forcible disarmament. It is also the first war conducted under a new national security strategy, which explicitly calls for intervening before a potential enemy can strike.
Mr. Bush's aides insist they have no intention of making Iraq the first of a series of preventive wars. Diplomacy, they argue, can persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programs. Intensive inspections can flush out a similar nuclear program in Iran. Threats and incentives can prevent Syria from sponsoring terrorism or fueling a guerrilla movement in Iraq.
Yet this week, as images of American forces closing in on Baghdad played on television screens, some of Mr. Bush's top aides insisted they were seeing evidence that leaders in North Korea and Iran, but not Syria, might be getting their point.
"Iraq is not just about Iraq," a senior administration official who played a crucial role in putting the strategy together said in an interview last week. It was "a unique case," the official said. But in Mr. Bush's mind, the official added, "It is of a type."
In fact, some administration officials are talking about the lessons Mr. Bush expects the world to take from this conflict, and they are debating about where the he may decide to focus when it is over.
The president seemed to allude to those lessons in his radio address this morning, saying his decision to oust Saddam Hussein was part of his plan to "not sit and wait, leaving enemies free to plot another Sept. 11 — this time, perhaps, with chemical, biological or nuclear terror."
Well yes, there is that. We will not sit and wait while countries continue the pretense of national sovereignty. If a nation does not do what we tell it to do, and I mean right now, we will simply take them out. We believe that diplomacy is always a useless first step so we will send our smoothest most diplomatic state department representatives like John Bolton, to threaten...er negotiate with these countries. If they properly and obsequiesly bow down to our omniscience we might let them off with just economic punishment and public humiliation (to serve as another "lesson," don't you know.) But, at the end of the day, rest assured that if any nation even thinks of defying the United Goddamn States of America, we will kick it's ass from here to kingdom come.
But what we really want is to liberate the people from their despotic, violent rulers. Like we liberated the Germans from Hitler.
Today, Colin Powell is quoted as saying that nobody in the American government is discussing invading Syria or Iran.
Saturday, Apr 05, 2003; 11:29 AM
CAIRO, Egypt - Iraq should be ruled by its own people and American forces will not invade Syria and Iran after liberating Baghdad, Secretary of State Colin Powell was quoted as saying in an interview published Saturday.
Powell's comments in the London-based al-Hayat newspaper come as the Bush administration faces criticism over its plans to temporarily govern postwar Iraq, and amid speculation in the Middle East that Iran and Syria would be America's next targets.
"Nobody in the American administration (has) talked about invading Iran or Syria," Powell said. "It seems that there is a constant desire by everybody to accuse us of invasion operations. That didn't, and won't, take place."
Looks like ole Colin's a teensy weensy bit out of the loop, doesn't it?
It makes you wonder, with all of Junior's talk about global terrorism and September 11th and protecting the American people and Islamic fundamentalism, why we are completely ignoring the countries that are actually spawning those things, like Pakistan, and instead we're concentrating on the tough guy tin horn despots like Saddam and Assad? Sure, Syria bankrolls terrorists, but it bankrolls terrorists who blow up Israelis, not Americans. Not that that is a good thing, by any means, but it does make you wonder why the street protests in Islamabad (that number a quarter million or more people, where they're burning Junior in effigy and declaring holy war on the United States) aren't seen as a concern. But Syria is suddenly looming large on the radar screen.
Is this sudden interest in Syria only about a bunch of power mad neocon conquerors with delusions of grandeur and a neurotic attachment to the right wing party of Israel, or is there some additional reason why little Donnie Rumsfeld just "out-o-the-blue" practically declared war on them?
What ever could it be?
[Israeli] National Infrastructures Minister Joseph Paritzky has requested an assessment of the condition of the old oil pipeline from Mosul to Haifa, with an eye toward renewing the flow of oil in the event of friendly post-war regime in Iraq.
[...]
Hanan Bar-On, then the deputy director-general of the Foreign Ministry, confirmed Sunday that Israel was involved in talks during the mid-1980s on a plan for an Iraq-Jordanian pipeline to the Red Sea port of Aqaba. Among the participants in these talks was Donald Rumsfeld, then an adviser to U.S. president Ronald Reagan and currently secretary of defense. The American corporation Bechtel was slated to build the pipeline. According to the deal, which eventually fell through, Israel was to receive about $100 million a year via former Israeli businessman Bruce Rappaport in return for a commitment not to oppose the construction or operation of the new pipeline.
Isn't that something. What a coincidence. But, what does that have to do with Syria? Oooooh
As acknowledged by the Israeli minister, a prerequisite for the project is, therefore, a new regime in Baghdad with friendly ties with Israel. However, such a regime, if ever it comes to power, will still require Syria's consent to operationalize the pipeline. Given the overall political environment in the Middle East and Israel's continued occupation of Syria's Golan Heights, the existing Syrian regime will never grant its consent as long as the status quo prevails. As stated by the Iranian government, during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) when Iraq enjoyed cordial and close relations with Israel's mentor, the United States, Israel tried, but failed, to resume the oil flow through the pipeline. Syria, a friend of Iran and an enemy of Iraq, blocked the flow of Iraqi oil.
Hence, unless the pipeline were redirected through Jordan, another country bordering Israel and Iraq with normalized relations with Israel, the pipeline project will require a different regime in Syria. In other words, regime change in both Iraq and Syria is the prerequisite for the project. As Paritzky did not mention a redirecting option, it is safe to suggest that the Israelis are also optimistic about a regime change in Syria in the near future.
Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and went back to work.