BushCo is only interested in the oil. Read about “PSAs” (Production Sharing Agreements) which are very likely already a done deal in Iraq.

http://www.carbonweb.org/crudedesigns.htm

What this means is that, Ayatollah or not, Exxon/Mobil and Chevron/Texaco have contracts, enforcable by the International Investment Tribunals, to let them steal the oil.

The rest is just “Bushwa.”

I hate to disagree with you, Mr. Scheer, but your description of the “double whammy” doesn’t do justice to the known facts.

It’s worth pointing out that while both the SCIRI and Sadrist paramilitary forces were trained and armed by Iranians and hold some degree of loyalty to Iranian spiritual leaders, the actual charges cited of Iranian Revolutionary Guards training Iraqis in bomb-making have not been substantiated. You are citing what is, in effect, Blairite FUD that came out, coincidentally, at the same time they were trying to threaten Iran regarding their legitimate and legal right to refine their own uranium.

Iran has a lot of existing ways of applying a “double whammy” to the Bush administration’s plans in Iraq that are worth discussing, but there’s no point in bringing up connections that are tenuous at best.

What about the many other dangerous directions this entire situation might be headed towards?

a) the descent into dictatorship

The central government has already learnt from the Americans that torture is permissible in the ‘new Iraq’. Will the theocrats soon erode or discard the ‘democratic process’ entirely and rule with an iron fist?

If there would be an upside to this, it would have to be that it might forestall or at least delay scenario b)

b) descent into all-out civil war (already underway?) and the disintegration of the nation state.

The inevitable pull-out of American troops could well provide the tipping point and propel one or more ethnic groups to secede. Most probably the Kurds, who’ve always resented being part of Iraq and who have the oil to underscore their ambitions.

Disintegration could lead to a regional conflagration that, in a geo-poiltical sense, would dwarf the dangers of the current situtation.

Mr. Scheer,

What could have been more obvious.  Even though there is no doubt that Saddam was a bad guy, he was at the very least a secular bad guy.  He was a bad guy that saw himself as a Western style gangster...not an Ayatollah styled Jihadist.  To any observer of realpolitik… he was the natural enemy to our enemy, the Theocratic fascists of Iran and Al Queda. 

How Bushies gang of goofballs could get it all so wrong is beyond me.  You didn’t have to get CIA memos to realize that.  To be sure Bush Sr and co. realized that Saddam for all his terrible faults was not worth toppling.