[PAA-Discuss] Who Won in Iraq? Iran Did -- Big Time

[A. Artemis]

I've got to agree with the "Who Wins Wars" list below.
   
  But I have a different take on an impending invasion of Iran, from the thread below:   Bush-Cheney-et-al have been preparing the general public for an invasion of Iran for awhile now.   Iran does not want to be invaded (duh!).  
   
  So to survive, it has to make nice with the bigger bully.   That meshes with #3 in the list below:  supplying contracts for the richer combatant.   
   
  Of course, Iranian leadership will feel pressured to mask this survival motive with some morally correct rationalle - or they may just personally face exile or assassination.   Their rationalle in turn will give Bush-Cheney-et-al the propaganda necessary to continue endless war.
   
  And this is one of the many, many reasons to Impeach.   With these 2 at the helm, there will never be any hope for end to any war, anywhere.
  

robert <rgg-629 at sbcglobal.net> wrote: 
        v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}        st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }                 From the enormous advantage gained by Iran via our invasion of Iraq, you would think that Dick Cheney is a mole for the Ayatollah. 
===
Who Won in Iraq? Iran Did -- Big Time
By Gary Brecher, The eXile

http://www.alternet.org/story/51544/  

All these claims that Iran is helping the insurgents really  make my head spin. Of course they're helping. They'd be insane if they weren't. If somebody invades the country next door, any state worth mentioning has to act. 
If Mexico got invaded by China, you better believe the U.S. would react. 

What really amazes me is how patient Iran has been about it, .... They've covered their tracks carefully  and kept their intervention to R&D level: just enough to 
keep Iraq burning, and patiently test out news IEDs.
-------------------QQQQQQQQQ---------
 
A funny thing happened on the floor of the Senate the other day. 
Somebody asked a serious question: "If the war in Iraq is lost, then who won?"
  
Reid had made a "gaffe" by saying in public what everybody 
already knows: "The war in Iraq is lost." 
When you say something obviously true in politics, it's called a "gaffe."
   
  But let's take the question seriously for a second here: 
who won in Iraq? ... At a regional level the big winner is obvious: Iran. 
  
 If Iranian intelligence really wanted to flood Iraq with 
weaponry that would turn our armored personnel carriers 
into well-insulated BBQs, they could have done it long ago.
 It's clear they're not doing that. They're smart enough to
 follow Napoleon's advice not to interfere with an enemy 
in the process of destroying himself -- and stockpiling 
the new IED designs on their side of the border in case
 we're stupid enough to invade.
   
   "Who won Iraq?" ... there are answers, pretty grim ones....
Anyway, for those of you collecting guidelines, here's what I
 think are some general rules for "Who wins wars?"
   
  1) In a big bloodbath like the Thirty Years War or WWI, the winner is usually the powers that don't fight, but dabble in spycraft and wet ops, meanwhile consolidating their own economic power.  (I would add, like the IMF, World Bank, oil companies, etc.)
  
2) The biggest loser is almost always the country on whose territory the war is fought. 
  
3) In a regional war, the big winner will be any neighboring states that can stay out of the war and work out supply contracts with the richer combatant (Thailand during 'Nam, Argentina in WWI, Switzerland in every war since Ur took on Ur South).
  
4) However, if there's an ethnic spillover, like Turkey has with the Kurds, this relationship can backfire.
  
5) The worst thing a major power can do is go to war alone for "moral" reasons. This is how medieval France wasted its huge advantages on pointless Middle Eastern crusades that did nothing but revitalize the Muslims and drive down the price of white slaves in the Cairo market.
  
 in Moscow, The eXile. 
 

   


 	      
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