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Beginning of the End? Comment by Larry Ross, February 23, 2007
Is it the beginning of the end of the Iraq war as Paul Rogers suggests? The US is on the verge of starting a major war on Iran (not mentioned by Rogers) that will dwarf the destruction and casualties suffered by Iraq. Perhaps the neoconservatives and Pentagon see the Iraq war, and the surge, simply as diversions from their real aim - Iran. After all they have managed to get Iraqis murdering Iraqis by using covert action to start a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites and directing activities of the different militias. They have built major US military bases and managed to pilfer billions of US taxpayer dollars rewarding favoured contractors with no-bid contracts. The Iraq war, horrific as it seems, may only be a cover, or appetiser, for something far more sinister and with very long lasting disastrous consequences - a probable nuclear war on Iraq . It is not just Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities that will be attacked, but the whole of Iranian society and infrastructure. 10,000 targets in one huge US attack it is claimed. This prospect, which Tony Blair and UK Defence forces must be fully aware of, is the probable main reason for British withdrawal of 1,700 troops from close to the Iranian border. They could have been attacked by enraged Iranian forces after the US bombing of Iran. It explains why the US is not too concerned. As the US may commence its attack on Iran before the end of April, the UK may suffer severe casualties if they have not left by then.
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Iraq: the beginning of the end The proposed British evacuation of Iraq prefigures the failure of the United States-led project in the country. by Paul Rogers, February 22, 2007 The Bush administration's additional deployment of troops to try and bring Baghdad under United States military control is still in its early days. Already, however, three developments throw light both on the likely outcome of the "surge" policy and the longer-term prospects for US troops in Iraq:
As the US and its putative Iraqi allies launched more intensive operations in Baghdad, many analysts expected the insurgents (as so often before) to melt away, waiting for the concentrated searches and clearances to subside before restarting their activities . There is some evidence that Shi'a militia have done just this, including reports of a retreat across the border to Iran by some of the militia's political leaders. For Sunni insurgents, though, temporary retreat has been far from the uniform reaction. One astonishing example is a direct assault on 19 February on a heavily protected American military position in the town of Tarmiya , north of Baghdad. |
