Everything they touch turns to sh*t. Bush has the opposite of the Midas Touch. Could we call it the Bush Touch?

If one approaches US foreign policy under Bush administrations with the model that it's pro-Iran, you have pretty decent explanatory power for the way policy actually unfolds.

Yes, and this is the logic result of this obvious foreign policy failure:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aasWc85xHmOY&refer=top_world_news

Happy Valentine's Day, Shrub.

Unless Chalabi is named Prime Minister... and turns out to be "their" man. Like the rest of you, I find the US-Iran connection thoroughly unintelligible. Nonetheless, DOD was still sending pocket-money to Chalabi while he was ensconced in a chalet outside of Teheran.

I honestly don't see where the failure is. We helped Stalin out by fighting Nazi Germany on the Western front. So?

After witnessing the recent election do you think the oppressed Iranians Shia masses will put up with their overlords' election shenanigans?

I also like how the Iranian mullahs keep complaining about how Bush is perpetrating "psychological warfare" on their asses by all his saber rattling.

But yeah I did read that an Iranian diplomat in Europe said that the Americans did Iran a favor by removing Saddam in the West and the Taliban to their East.

> After witnessing the recent election do you
> think the oppressed Iranians Shia masses will put
> up with their overlords' election shenanigans?

Peter,
Do you think the average Iraqi woman was/is better off under (1) Saddam Hussein (2) the current government/situation (3) the government/situation as it will be 2 years from now under a Shiite Islamist government?

Just curious.

Cranky

"Bush has the opposite of the Midas Touch. Could we call it the Bush Touch?"

We could call it the MODOS touch.

(Fafblog in-joke.)

Blowback is a Republican foreign policy specialty
Kinda like the Swiss with cheese and the Japanese with fish, it's what Republican foreign policy eggheads make best.
Now America, you sit right down and tuck in to that nice big bowl of Blowback.

"we have sponsored an election that brings to power allies of Iran, an Islamic-fundamentalist dominated state with an active program to develop nuclear technology."

Maybe they should Condi to Tehran with a cake shaped like a A-bomb. Y'know, just to break the ice.

Remeber: You can't spell Bu**sh** without Bush.

How do you explain to a child that her Daddy died fighting to bring Sharia law to Iraq?

And who knows, maybe the new Shiite Islamist government will succeed in developing WMDs where Saddam did not...

So, when is the coup due? You think Allawi is just going to walk away?

Well, anyone who wishes to hold that President Bush knows what he is doing, must first account for Bush's (1) fiscal policy, (2) pre-9/11 counterterror policy [first: FIND the counterterror policy, then account for it], (3) Iraqi occupation policy, and (4) energy and global warming policy, for mere starters. It is therefore likely that the President has also "misunderestimated" the future of Iraq; and that realization may finally dawn on Fox America if the Iraqis unite to kick us out, amend Bremer's economic decrees in order to kick out the U.S. corporations, denominate their oil in Euros, and start watching French movies.

That said, it is sheer mass-suicide for the Democrats to criticize an election anywhere, for almost any reason. I wrote several times on this very site before our own presidential election (and got knocked on the head for it, several times): if Kerry didn't say with EVERY breath that getting rid of dictators is good, but Bush's approach was incompetent, --the Democrats would lose. The post-mortem that most voters rejected Kerry because "he didn't have another plan" is slightly off-target: what they wanted was a clear and constant statement that Democrats understand and support the basic idealistic principle, freedom. Democrats believe it, sure, and will fight and die for it; but you also have to SAY it, and keep saying it. (Indeed some of the swing voters FOR Bush suspect that he is generally incompetent, and after the election, they started getting emotionally defensive about it.) Our national religion is self-determination. If that allows a country to turn around and become fundamentalist Muslim, so be it.

As for foreign policy, you may expect to see the Muslims acting more moderately everywhere (e.g. Libya, Palestine), after Mahathir's worldwide speech a year-and-a-half ago advising them to lay low, build up strength, and keep their powder dry. Almost nothing we can do at this point will avoid the coming conflagration, except to use the intervening time we have left to demonstrate that we stick to our basic principles, and let time heal the wounds. If the Shia and their allies tell us to get out of Iraq, and the U.S. government decides to stay and sit on top of the oil, Armageddon is assured.

Cranky asked:
"Do you think the average Iraqi woman was/is better off under (1) Saddam Hussein (2) the current government/situation (3) the government/situation as it will be 2 years from now under a Shiite Islamist government?"

I'll let riverbendblog.com answer that (the writer is a woman):
"Last week my cousin needed to visit the current Ministry of Higher Education. ...I volunteered to go along with him because I had some questions of my own.

...We were greeted in the reception area by a bearded man who scanned us disapprovingly. “Da’awachi,” my cousin whispered under his breath, indicating the man was from the Da’awa Party. What could he do for us? Who did we want? We wanted to have some documents legalized by the ministry, I said loudly, trying to cover up my nervousness. He looked at me momentarily and then turned to the cousin pointedly. My cousin repeated why we were there and asked for directions. We were told to go to one of the rooms on the same floor and begin there.

“Please dress appropriately next time you come here.” The man said to me. I looked down at what I was wearing- black pants, a beige high-necked sweater and a knee-length black coat. Huh? I blushed furiously. He meant my head should be covered and I should be wearing a skirt.

...No one could talk that way before the war and if they did, you didn’t have to listen. You could answer back. Now, you only answer back and make it an issue if you have some sort of death wish or just really, really like trouble."
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Ottnott,
That is what I would have guessed.

I suspect, however, that the Radical Right doesn't mind about that.

Cranky

Oh, more than that, Cranky. Some of them secretly approve.

Linkmeister,
Guess I was being too indirect. I was reminded of the "submitted" and "head of household" movements among the Radical Right and thinking that there is a lot of similarity between that movement and shariah. Yes, I think they approve - and perhaps not so secretly soon.

Cranky Observer

Turkey has an Islamicist party in power and the sky hasn't fallen. Afghanistan has Islam written into its constitution and the world hasn't ended.

The Shiites won less votes than projected and will need to depend on the secular Sunni Kurds to form a government. Not suprising this doens't fit into peoples' narratives.

To me it is the left who have been far too complacent about Islamic fundamentalism.

My guess is that the principles of rule of law, and popular sovereignty are necessary preconditions for the liberation of women. Maybe not popular sovereignty, since it happened in the Soviet Union. Economic development may be important too.

Of course, in our own history, liberation of women came in no small part as a consequence of wars, where all the men were killed or at least overseas.

So I'm inclined to focus on rule of law as the more important step here. When a country can change it's government peacefully as a result of a vote, that's a big step forward. Other things will come as a result of this basic ability.