Allies in Peace

It seems that someone in the US administration has finally realised that they've made an enormous strategic mistake by invading Iraq and empowering Iran friendly religious Shiites in the way they have.

The increased tension between Iran and the U.S. on the nuclear issue is affecting relations between Washington and the Shi'ites here. They are trying to find someone else, some other allies who will not turn against them (in Iraq) if things heat up with Iran.
- Anonymous European diplomat in Baghdad

Unlike Saddam in 2003, Iran today really does have the potential to build a nuclear weapon in the not too distant future. Unfortunately, the US is currently committed to supporting what will undoubtedly be a generally Iran friendly, Shiite fundamentalist dominated government in Iraq. If, as US pressure on Iran increases, the much feted democratically elected government of Iraq starts criticising the US government on their attitude towards the Iranian nuclear issue it's going to put the US administration in the ridiculous position of being the enablers and allies of Iraqi supporters of the Iranian nuclear programme. That's clearly something they wish to avoid.

So the US government is looking for other allies in Iraq. It seems that they're looking for new allies among the Sunnis (or Saddamists and rejectionists as Bush likes to call them) to counter this potential problem. The farcical nature of all of this probably doesn't need to be pointed out.

But I will anyway. We've invaded Iraq to disarm it of weapons of mass destruction which it didn't have. In doing that, we've had to ally ourselves with the new government of Iraq. That new government is likely to take exception to US attempts to stop Iran from building WMD. As a result, the US is now looking for new allies in Iraq among the people they removed from power in the first place.

Don't let anyone tell you that the invasion has made the world a more dangerous and unstable place though. That would just be irrational anti-americanism of the worst kind.

Tony Blair got the UK involved in this mess and he got us involved in it by deliberately misleading the public as to the size of the threat posed by Saddam. History will not be kind to him. Every day that goes by with Blair still in office will be a day that history records as one in which the Labour party and the British people continued to accept the unacceptable.

Personally, I'm not inclined to wait for history. I want to be unkind to Blair now. The lying, manipulative moron must be hounded out of office at the earliest opportunity.

(This is meaningless to almost everyone but I'll just add that this post isn't directly related to an email I may have sent recently.)

Tags: News, Politics, Iraq, Iran, Tony Blair