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Iraq
Is the Breakup of Iraq Good or Bad for America?
2014-06-30
Grom: don't use the 'big' tag in formatting. Thanks. AoS.
"It neither helps us nor hurts us, but exactly the opposite," Mexican President Luis Echeverria is supposed to have said ("Ni nos benefica ni nos perjudica, sino todo lo contrario"). In the case of Iraq, as so often, it depends: the winner is the side best able to bear the burden of uncertainty. America should be the winner when our prospective enemies fight each other (as I argued in [a] February 2012 essay). In the language of option trading (see here), we should be long volatility, but instead are short volatility. That is because neither the Obama administration nor the Republican mainstream can admit that Iraq and Syria are not to be stabilized, and are stuck with the onus of apparent policy failure.

Iraq's woes surely are good for the Russians and the Iranians. Russia just delivered five Sukhoi 25s, their nimbler but less powerful competitor to our Warthog close-air-defense fighter (that's the one the Pentagon proposes to eliminate), the first installment on a $500 million contract for a dozen of them. Russia also is selling $2 billion of arms, including attack helicopters, to Egypt, and with Saudi funding. The Iranians meanwhile have sent in special forces and armaments.

All of this makes our leadership in both parties look like idiots, and that is bad for America. Even those of us who think that our leadership are idiots cringe when it becomes obvious to the rest of the world.The American public by a margin of 71:22 thinks that the Iraq War wasn't worth it. They are against any sort of intervention because there is no-one they trust to conduct intervention sensibly.

Putin is not smarter than we are. He is simply unburdened by the illusion that most of the countries in the region should or will succeed, and he is willing to stay one jump ahead of the game, maneuvering for advantage as opportunities emerge. We are fettered by Obama's affirmative-action approach to the Muslim world as articulated in his July 2009 Cairo address and numerous subsequent statements, and the Republicans' ideological belief that the mere form of parliamentary democracy fixes all problems.

The intrusion of reality benefits the likes of Putin, because Putin is a realist It hurts us, because we refuse to accept reality. Our leaders live in ideological bubbles; they are incapable of considering the consequence of their errors, because they believe in their respective causes (the innate goodness of Islam or the innate propensity of people towards democracy) with religious intensity.
Posted by:g(r)omgoru

#5  Putinist Russia's achilles heel is its perennially struggling, decrepit industrial base which makes it highly vulnerable to either China's andor Soon-to-be-Nuclear Islam's geopol ambitions.

Lest we fergit, IMO VLAD'S REAL REASON(S) FOR ANNEXING THE CRIMEA FROM UKRAINE ...

* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM, WORLD NEWS > [Business Week] RUSSIA'S FORCES ON THE UKRAINIAN BORDER MAY NOT BE AS FORMIDABLE AS IT LOOKS.

* RELATED TIME.COM > WHY IS RUSSIA'S INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTIVITY SO POOR?

* GROONG > ISIS: AZERBAIJANI + TURKY WILL SOON BECOME ISLAMIC STATES | GROUP OF "ISLAMIC STATE OF SYRIA + THE LEVANT" [i.e. ISIS/ISIL] ASKS AZERBAIJANI PEOPLE TO JOIN THEIR STRUGGLE.

* SAME > [ICH] IFF MILITARISM CONTINUES, HUMANITY IS DOOMED.

D *** NG IT, WHATS HUMANITY GOING TO DO IFF RADICAL ISLAM = NUCLEAR ISLAM SUCCEEDS IN TAKING OVER THE WORLD, OR MOST OF IT - LEAVE EARTH???

And thus, little Virginia, we learn once again why God, Madonna, + 1960's-70's = 2014 Guam Taotamonas invented the old new movie
"INTERSTELLAR".
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2014-06-30 22:48  

#4  We do. So don't.
Posted by: Pappy   2014-06-30 10:58  

#3  I didn't know you mind.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2014-06-30 10:20  

#2  Soon, Jordanian makeover.
Posted by: Dale   2014-06-30 09:40  

#1  We are fettered by Obama's affirmative-action approach to

Hey, it works for him and besides, victimization and blame-game are all he knows.
Posted by: Besoeker   2014-06-30 07:02  

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