So you'd prefer Saddam's rule, Ozlandy?

The reversal of fortune from a lost cause to a victorious one due to the Surge is a great victory for the U.S. and credit must be given where credit is due, to the determination of Bush to implement Petraeus' strategy.

It would be utter foolishnes if President Obama jeopardized and squandered this strategic victory over the insurgents by withdrawing combat troops from Iraq before the country brought these victorious fruits to the 'market' of democracy.

http://civcontraislam.typepad.com

Certainly the Washington Post was spot on when it proved how the Surge was Bush manipulated when lo and behold as pro-American Shias were about to arrest some known insurgent Sunnis, a US copter swooped in and arrested the friendly Shias.

As shown in Friday's West Australian, it shows how the Sunni Sheiks who had made the Surge Awakening deal with American generals are now proving less friendly, as shown below.

" IN this cradle of former Sunni insurgency, these tribal leaders nurtured and given power by the US only back a year or so ago, appear to want to take control again the old-fashiond way with guns and money - if their political ambitions promised by the Americans in the coming elections are frustrated."

Tried to get onto a West' journalist over the above, but as during the Howard era, it seems mature-age political historians are bad news for the paper.

Saddam was indeed an agent of US and British interests when they actively sponsored his rise to power and kept him their while he served their purposes.

However, like all despots who have been in power too long, he began to see himself as "bulletproof" and could act independently of his masters.
Noriega, Pinochet and the Shah of Iran were all ultimately removed or support was withdrawn, but Gadaffi seems to have bought some extra time.

The reason that Bush senior didn't get rid of him after Desert Storm was because he wanted Saddam removed by a military coup, not a popular uprising and the US actually helped the Republican Guard put down the civilian rebellions that followed.

Now they have a new croney in power and it will be interesting to see how much real independence he will be allowed to have.

Good on you Wobbles, not that the lying spin bastard's'll take much notice, even though we've really got proof on our side.

Read more -

As a trained political historian in a modern democracy might ask what is the correct way to analyse today’s political problems, particularly in the Middle East.

There is little doubt that today’s Middle East conflict is nothing like the major cause of both WW1 and WW2, both huge castrophies which rather disgustingly began mainly between two Western nations, Germany and France, finally both bringing in the rest of Europe and Russia, as well as the United states.

Speaking philosophically, today’s conflict, because it is so religious, is much more worrying because it is so lopsided, Western Christianity being gigantic in military capacity, while Islam, comprising the major anti-white Western forces , though huge in people power, is so pitifully low in regular armanents it has to resort to terroism.

The point is how does a trained historian go about this problem, which in some ways resembles my personal problem when I wrote a series on Westralian history called A Land in Need, in which some readers later told me I had been too sympathetic with the murderous Aborigines who in the early days attacked white settlers homes and viilages which were not protected by the military.

To close on Iran, which so many of our OLO’s fully agree with the Bush terminology of Iran as an evil state, while personally I turn to the story two years ago about the Iranian female judge who angrily replied to a suggestion how Iran would be much better learning the American Way to true democracy, to which she hotly replied -

Yes, it is true that we could do with democracy, but certainly not fashioned on the American Way.

Certainly any democratic Aussie political historian should be allowed these days to think the same.

Regards, BB, Buntine, WA.