Why are we in Iraq? Good question! Damned good question! Originally, it was stop Saddam from attacking us with “weapons of mass destruction,” nukes in particular, or at least that dreadful yellow cake. There was no chance that Saddam would attack us, of course—he wasn’t that dumb—but the mere fact that he had those WMD was the justification that W and the Gang needed. When it turned out that Saddam didn’t have any WMD, not even yellow cake, the invasion was sold as a humanitarian enterprise, sort of a Republican version of liberation theology. When the Iraqis seemed to tire of being liberated, at least by us, it was that damned Al Qaeda in Iraq. We couldn’t leave and let them take over. Now General Petraeus tells us that Al Qaeda in Iraq is pretty much on the ropes—which has some people wondering if Al Qaeda in Iraq was ever off the ropes—but now, damn it, those damn Iranians are everywhere! We just don’t get a moment’s peace, do we?
The Washington Post couldn’t agree more. In its April 13th lead editorial, the Post warned that “The proxy war in Iraq is just one front in a much larger Iranian offensive.” Like so many right-thinking Americans, the Post is distressed, almost to death, by “the release in December of a National Intelligence Estimate that misleadingly emphasized Iran’s reported decision to put one part of its nuclear program on hold.” That “part”, of course, was the nuclear weapons part, which kind of makes one wonder who’s being misleading here, the National Intelligence Estimate folks or the WP, but, hey, when you’re trying to think up a reason for keeping 175,000 American troops and mercenaries in Iraq when the organization that attacked us is holed up in Afghanistan and Pakistan, you take what you can get.
Afterwords
General Petraeus was testifying in behalf of the second anniversary of “the Surge,” sold as a temporary increase of American power to allow the Iraqi government to get its act together. The Bush Administration developed eighteen measures to determine the extent of the government’s success, all eighteen of which, so far as I can see, have been tossed into the Atlantic Ocean. If you asked George Bush about them today, I am sure he would have no idea of what you were talking about.
Iran and Iraq, along with North Korea, were the “Axis of Evil” proclaimed by the President just prior to the onset of the invasion of Iraq, three nations that had little to do with each other and nothing to do with 9/11. North Korea is the only one of the three that actually has nuclear weapons, but that country seems to have fallen off the map, for all the consideration given it by the Bush Administration and the Post. One can hardly imagine why. Perhaps because a small nation armed with one or two primitive nuclear weapons presents no threat whatsoever to the greatest military power that ever existed? Is that it?
