"U.S. Officials Say a Theocratic Iraq Is Unlikely"

"U.S. Officials Say a Theocratic Iraq Is Unlikely"?!?!?!?!?


Aren't these the same guys who said we would be welcomed with flowers, that the occupation would be as peaceful as the occupation of Japan, that we wouldn't need 200,000 troops, that it was all over when the Iraqi army disappeared, or when Saddam was captured, or when . . . (the latest terminus is the elections).


It seems to me that a theocratic Iraq is the best the US can hope for, with an Iraqi Civil War more likely.


Think about that, what was our worst nightmare a few years ago, what we backed Saddam Hussein against Iran to prevent, has now become the best we can hope for. And the US administration that turned it around for us that fast has just been re-elected by the American people.


For the record, I do not think the majority of the American people are either stupid or evil. I do think, knowing so many of them as I do, that they are shockingly ignorant of the world beyond their shores, if not their borders. In many cases they don't even know other parts of their own country very well.


Richard Nixon once argued for continuing the Vietnam War lest the US turn into a "pitiful, helpless giant." It is frightening to contemplate that the giant has become pitiful and helpless because it is blind, lashing out in post 9/11 anger at the wrong targets, turning friends into enemies, and neutrals into foes.