That report just Can't be true!

Veep Cheney said, in the weeks before the cakewalk, that the Iraqis were going to welcome us with open arms, greet us as Liberators, and be all prepared to institute a tolerant, free-market democracy out of the sheer gratitude of the experience.

Right there on the teevee talk shows, he said that!

Heh!

So, if it's reported that it isn't happening in Just That Way, then the reports must be Wrong. Simple as that.

After all, we spent nearly $100Million on Our Man Chalabi, we flew his 700-man private army into Nasariyah and armed it, and we expect some return on that investment.

To even Think that a Majority of Iraqis would even Consider wanting to control Iraq -- why, it's downright Unthinkable! That's what it is.

When we said there should be a Democracy, we didn't mean that the majority would actually control it, did we?

(Everybody spins; Everybody wins!)

Just thinking out loud. The Mullahs of Iran have probably had a variation of this theme kicking around since 1979. After all, Najaf, Nasiriya and Al Kut trump Qom in Shia religious importance. Here's the theme: seize the religious center and the rest will follow. Eject the US, and hold with friendly Mullahs. Establish Theocracy, and bingo, everyone wins. (Those who dissent, shoot them). The danger in their plan is if, theoretically, the US were to pull out, the Ba'athist, who are still there, would be back in a hot minute. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is very good at exporting a revolution that, ironically, their own people are rejecting. It's easy to crow pooh in the Veep's eyes, but let's not pretend a variation on the great game is not occuring. Not sure I'd describe this as US versus the natural will of the Iraqi people. More the US on the side of stability, and the Iranians on the side of instability, collapse and the assumption of external control of the Iraqi people. Unable to get my mind around the idea the Prez Bush and Associates are the worst thing to hit humanity, as some world views seem to be based upon. To those Dorothies out there, there are still lions and tigers and bears, oh my, around. The Iranian Mullahs are one.

The best defence is a good offense. Kick the legs out from under the mullahs in Iran and their provocateurs in Iraq will fold.

No gradualism, though - the stakes are too high. Start with a full-bore destabilization campaign inside Iran. If that doesn't work in the acceptably near future, just go get them.

You would think that those "clerics" and "mullas" would suddenly vanish, with all the instability in iraq right now, IT could happen, couldn't it? dissapear without a trace......

Wishful Thinking -- the basis of two hundred years of Western policy dealing with the Middle East.

Gotta love it!

Do you think the admin would have put forth Chalabi, knowing full well that he would be an obvious symbol of our attempts to control Iraq, without also putting into place potential opponents that suit our means as well? Give them some credit and show a little patience. GW has proven he's a little smarter than was once perceived. Hold onto your hats, but maybe some of those individuals running around jockying for position and voicing a little occupation opposition are meant to drown out the potentially dangerous political figures that might emerge in the so-called power vacuum. Maybe.

Now there's a New Wrinkle entirely:

Dubya is So Clever that he's maybe supporting both our supposed supporters and our supposed opposition, the better to control both of them.

Positively Middle Eastern. And therefore well beyond Western capacity.

Gotta love the suggestion, though!

wrt Iran:

In the modern era, Revolutions tend ftmp to seed their own destruction, in a Hegelian fashion. The USSR did, and might well have collapsed sooner had not the Great Patriotic War intervened. The PRCs flirtation with Communism will likely last no longer overall, and is already showing signs of running out of steam. (The Chinese sorta invented Capitalism before the West really got into things like Writing.) Cuba likewise along with several others.

The Iranian Revolution appears to be following the same sort of pattern as well, in its early stages.

These things pretty much follow their own timeline -- it takes on the order of 2-3 generations to bring the Hegeliam antithesis to the fore. That allows the first group of Dedicated Revolutionaries to die off, the second-generation of Faithful Maintainers to have their time, and sometime within the third generation, both the initial fervor and faithful memory of the initial revolution dissipate pretty much, and folks finally have the capability of getting past all the revolutionary stuff and re-doing their society and nation entirely.

Iran is just about where one might reasonably expect it to be, at the moment. We could, I suppose, give the fundamentalists a Common Enemy to unite the nation against, thereby maintaining their influence and authority for a longer period of time. But it would be foolish to do that.

Which is not to say it couldn't happen just that way.

Revolutions die out inevitably. When they are clearly in the process of doing so, patience and when necessary containment probably do the most good. Conquest historically hasn't done very well, in contrast.