Sunday, January 12, 2014

Gates to Sunni-Shia War


Commenting on a book I have not read and will most probably not read, am I committing some sort of journalist faux pas? 
Dam the ethical torpedoes! Full Speed ahead!
I’ve been banging away all over the Internet about Gates new book on his job at Defense.  Most of the discussion – the hard news reports – has been on Gates evaluation of Bush and then Obama, their staffs, and individuals like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.  In book reviews all over the Internet, Gates tells us a lot of things but he does not illuminate on one big stupid decision – the one the first G Bush decided not to do – which was to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam.  As thought democracy would be introduced into Iraq if we got rid of Saddam, the second G Bush – and his handler, D Chaney – may have done way more than they could even in their tiny brains ever imagined.  
We, the U.S., the Bushes, the Neocons (Remember them?  They predated the Tea Party, and they were big, really big, that is, back then.), the Cheney-Rumsfeld debacle of a strategy may have started the great, mythological, and legendary Sunni-Shia War with the overthrow of Saddam.  We started a war that will go on for years, and will affect everyone in the World, no matter your religions beliefs. 
The Syrian war is not a war of independence, or the rights of individuals groups, democracy, or freedom.  It is a war between the Sunni and the Shia and who will control Syria.  And with Iran ensconced in Iraq (thanks to us) and the backing from the Sunni Middle Eastern countries for groups like Al-Qaeda and those groups that represent Sunni interests, we got ourselves a war with no end.  The only question is where will it happen next.
Every event needs to be held up to the Sunni-Shia benchmark to understand what is going on from the eastern shores of the Med to Iran.  The U.S., Europe, and Israelis are not the ones who should be worrying about Iran’s development of nuclear capability.  How ironic:  A promise of 40 virgins causes one very young Arabian boy to strap fissional material to his body and detonate it in a Middle Eastern City.
Libya’s problem is tribal, Egypt’s problems are internal, but the Middle to Eastern Middle East is going to erupt in the infamous – 1,000 years in the waiting - Sunni-Shia War.  All thanks to us, and somehow, Gates didn’t mention this.  Go Figure.