The Bushes Created the Iranian Menace by Demolishing Iraq

Iran is about to be crowned with nuclear weaponry, its theocrats will not be restrained like relatively irreligious America and Russia, and this problem was created by the Bushes.

by

David Gottfried

(Where Iranian Culture and Music Meet “The Omen” and “The Exorcist.”) 

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In foreign affairs, the wisest policy is neither hawkish nor dovish.   Rather, one should endeavor to be strategic, shrewd and to think two steps ahead of one’s adversary.  This assertion may appear to be a truism, but I think the biggest foreign policy flaw of both President Bush senior and President Bush junior was a sort of dunce-like decision to go to war against Iraq.  The demolition of Iraqi power, by the United States, led inexorably to the swift and savage augmentation of Iranian Power and Tehran’s ascension to the very pinnacle of power in Southwest Asia.    

The United States would do well to study and emulate the brilliant techniques of our elders in foreign affairs, the British.   The United Kingdon is a relatively small nation but its influence over the world was mammoth and unparalleled.  In large measure, the British lion roared because it understood the virtues of dividing and conquering one’s foes.  India was, in large measure, appended to the British empire for so long because the Brits instigated battles between Hindus and Muslims.   The British mandate, in what had been known as “Mandatory Palestine,” had been justified because of hostilities between Jews and Arabs, which the British cleverly incited and stoked.  

Iran and Iraq have a history of hostility which goes back more than two thousand years.  Iraq and Iran, very simply, are the successors to Babylon and Persia, respectively, and those two  lions of antiquity turned the deserts sands scarlet with the blood of one another for centuries.  Their antagonisms were reaffirmed and accentuated shortly after Muhammed died.

After Muhammed died, adherents to Islam quickly decided to kill one another in a dispute over which persons or relatives of Muhammed should be honored and hailed as his descendants and bearers of the righteous torch of Islamic indignation.  In the novels of Charles Dickens, descendants fought one another, over a will or an estate, for a few decades at most.   In Islam (purportedly a religion of peace), Muslims have been killing one another, over which descendants of Muhammed are the cat’s meow, for 1400 years.

In any event, Iraq has been ruled by Sunnis, who take one side in Islam’s epic Inheritance battle, and Iran takes the Shiite side in this glorious, perpetual war.

The health and well being of Israel and the West would be enhanced if Iran and Iraq discharged their venom on one another instead of releasing their rage in our direction.   Although I despised Ronald Reagan, he was rather bright when it came to Iran and Iraq.  He incited disputes between the two nations, and they spent almost the entirety of the 1980’s slaughtering one another.

I suggest that my readers take a good look at the way Iran and Iraq fought one another.  After one gets a glimpse of the ghoulishness of their Weltanschauung (world view), one can understand why we Jews are afraid of dealing with them and don’t trust them.  For example, in the Iranian-Iraqi War of the 1980’s, the Iranians were plagued by minefields.  How did they clear the mine fields?  They used 13- to 15-year-old boys who were less valuable than adult soldiers.  They told the boys to wear white when they ran across the mine fields so the blood of their martyrdom would show up more brightly and bring pleasure to the eyes of Allah. 

If this is how they treat their 13-year-old children, how the hell will they treat the Jews if the Jews would ever be so stupid as to once again sign a piece of paper ceding land for “peace.” 

The Dullards of the American Media were Wrong: Sadaam’s seizure of Kuwait was nothing like Hitler’s conquest of Poland

When Iraq seized Kuwait in the Summer of 1990, George Bush senior, in his faux  Churchillian mode, told the American people that Sadaam was a bad man because he took what wasn’t his.  Of course, Sadaam was a very bad man (Most people who make it to the helm of power are morally challenged at best). 

However, April Glaspie, America’s ambassador to Kuwait, said to Sadaam, shortly before he crossed the Kuwaiti border, that America would take no sides in intra-Arab disputes.  This was a virtual invitation to Sadaam to grab Kuwait.  (This was remarkably similar to what Dean Acheson, the American Secretary of State, said in 1950, “Japan is the Westernmost point in the American Security perimeter in Asia,” implicitly stating that America would do nothing if the Communists advanced on South Korea; shortly after Acheson’s statement, the Communists did attack South Korea.)    

My assertion, that Ambassador Glaspie’s statement to Sadaam – we will take no sides in intra-Arab disputes – was an invitation to Sadaam to grab Kuwait was made by Ross Perot in one of his debates with Bill Clinton and George Bush in 1992:

 (At about 58  minutes and 30 seconds into the debate, Perot charges that April Glaspie’s representations to Sadaam were a virtual invitation to seize Kuwait.   A lively quarrel with Bush ensues.) 

 Of course, if you think Ross Perot was just a nut, I should say that the NY Times made the same allegation. 

Also, contrary to what the mainstream media parroted in the Summer of 1990, Iraq’s conquest of Kuwait did not “come out of nowhere” and was not solely the result of one dictator’s unquenchable thirst for glory and power. 

Iraq took Kuwait because of its justifiable rage toward Saudia Arabia, Kwait and other oil rich emirates in the Gulf.  For almost the whole of the 1980’s, Sadaam fought Iran, and in fighting Iran he fought for the Gulf states as well as himself.   Sadaam, like the Gulf States, adhered to the Sunni branch of Islam.   Iran was part of the Shiite branch of Islam.  Sadaam believed that by fighting Iran, he was fighting for his fellow Sunnis in the Gulf.

Now that the war was over, Sadaam wanted to rebuild.  He wanted the Gulf States to cut oil production to raise the price of oil so Sadaam could amass enough revenue to rebuild war-torn Iraq.    The Gulf states refused, fearing that increased oil prices might wean the West from its oil dependence. 

In Gulf War Two, the United States attacked Sadaam, supposedly, because of 9/11.   However, there is no evidence that Sadaam was ever allied with, let alone conspired with, Osama ben Ladin.   And there is no reason to believe that Osama Bin Ladin and  Sadaam ever were ever allied on anything.   Osama bin Ladin was fanatically faithful to the most war-like interpretations of Islam, eschewed modernity, and deplored Marxism.   By contrast, Sadaam came of age at the time of Egypt’s President Nassar and was, in large measure, a Nasserite.  Sadaam’s and Nassar’s Arab radicalism was not guided by Islam, positioned itself on the left end of the political spectrum and often espoused Marxist or quasi-Marxist rhetoric.

I don’t dispute that Sadaam was a vile man, that he used poison gas on the Kurds, and that he harbored maniacal hate toward Israel (Half the world seems to believe that Israel and World Jewry are the cause of all evil).   However, Iran was and is a bigger country, a wealthier country and its citizens are much better educated that Iraqis.   Iran, therefore, always had the potential to be a much greater threat.   And so  long as Iraq dug into Iran’s side like a tumor or a pain that never left her, Iran did not have the energy and resources to pick fights with the rest of the world.     

Speaking of the Soviets and Osama Ben Ladin

Of course, we have fought the wrong side before.   One of the biggest mistakes stemmed from our ardent desire to combat communism.    To combat communism, we armed the monster that was Osama Ben Ladin.   He drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan, and filled with self confidence and blistering pride, he decided to make war on the West.

And finally, the most demonic figure of the 20^th Century, or perhaps all time, Adolf Hitler, was supported and protected by Neville Chamberlain because Hitler opposed Communism, and Chamberlain and company were afraid that the British working class might bring a Bolshevik revolution to the United Kingdom.   (Many American people have the delusion that Brits are all enchanted by their monarchy.  Brits are not that stupid, and in the first part of the 20^th century, when British poverty was much more pronounced, the working class was smoldering with leftist rage.   The Tzar, in large measure, was denied asylum in Britain because the British government thought that his admittance to the UK would result in revolution and the death of the monarchy)
     

In conclusion, I believe that if one makes the decision to fight, one should fight to win; there is little sense in prolonging the agony ala France in Algeria and Vietnam.    And I believe that Israel owes it to herself to fight hard and to hold nothing back. 

But, by all  means, make sure you have selected the right target.