[Nonstatist]

My opinion is we should back Chalabi with everything we can. Theres no point in us screwing around with Muslim clerics. Let Chalabi worry about buying them off.

[sarasota]

Believe it was (Colonel?)Hunt on O'Reilly last night who said we should "whack" a few of these guys to settle things down. Referenced that if Ghadafi's (sp)plane had "gone down" things would have been mighty different around those parts.

[Question_Assumptions]

The Americans need to get the power going and get on Iraqi TV and tell the Iraqis that they have a choice. They can choose to enter the 21th Century and have peace and prosperity for all of the people of Iraq or they can choose to wallow in past tribalism and grudges and descend back into the Third World Hell of violence, revenge, oppression, and petty hatreds. Their choice. And they should ask the young Iranians what they really think before they choose the latter.

[vbmoneyspender]

The graveyards are filled with people who have underestimated the U.S. military.

[Wright is right!]

"Just as they did against the shah, the Iranian Shiite leaders intend to build a mass following, leading to an insurrection against us. Look carefully at the banners carried by the Shiite demonstrators. They are very clean and well produced, with slogans in both Arabic (for the Iraqis) and English (for Western media). That is the Iranian regime at work, one of the most brilliant and patient intelligence organizations in the region. The slogans chanted by the mobs in Baghdad are Iranian slogans, calls for an Islamic state."

I said this exact thing in a post over a week ago chastizing the media for failing to realize just who the fomentors of these demonstrations are. I got flamed royally. People thought I was either wrong or, even if right, playing with trivialities.

Iran is trying to take advantage of the sudden power vacuum, and we have to stop them.

Michael

[LarryM]

The way to go is to strike at the Iranian regime. If they have to play defense, they won't be as able to promote subversion in Iraq. I don't believe reasoning with the shiites is going to work. They are controlled by their Imams and don't even understand concepts like democracy.

[ellery]

btttttttt

[Shermy]

Bump.

The early reports of Shiite's in Iraq wanting no theocracy has been overtaken by well-ordered, media-savvy "protests" against America, etc. This is the hand of Iran.

[valkyrieanne]

After the surrender of Germany, Gen. Patton wanted to move east straight for Moscow, and take out our ally, the Soviet Union. The idea had some merit.

Similarly, we could move east right to Iran. Or we can sit around and let the State Department play games for the next six months, while Iraq consolidates itself into a hard-line Shi'ite theocracy a la Iraq. Given the cluelessness of the State Dept, it will probably be the latter.

That anyone could be *surprised* at the behavior of the fundamentalist Shi'ites is amazing to me. Has it occurred to anyone that they may be just as bad as Saddam when they get going full-tilt and start raking in the oil money?