Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Iran and Syria the Axis of peace?

You just could not make this up.

When the Taliban were overthrown, Iran helped, because the Taliban were the enemy and more so than America. They got nothing for it other than the most bizarre accusations that Iran, a Shia theocracy would be hosting Sunni extremists so hard line that they executed Shia Muslims in Afghanistan.

Syria has been cold shouldered as well.

This is because Donald Rumsfeld's plan was going to impress them so much, they would be left quaking in their boots.

Umm...

Looks like utter arrogance to me.

You can read my take on why we are in this mess in Iraq here, All my articles on Iraq here, and on Afghanistan here. You can read this article from the Libdemograph Independent here.

However, one thing I would say, is this:

  • If you are going to bluff, make sure they don't see you (and they have)
  • If you are going to negotiate do so from strength, before they have seen your hand.
We are completely buggered as far as the Middle and near East is concerned because we look like a busted flush.

It need not have been this way. We could have used our brains.

Winston Churchill said "Jaw jaw is better than war war". He was right. You talk right up until the time you have to present a war ultimatum. Then you go to war. You can't sit around picking and choosing who you do and don't talk to or else you end up looking like a bunch of pratts.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

But what does Bush say about this?

Benedict White said...

Nothing fantasticly useful at the moment.

There is the rubbish, playing to ones own audience about how they must do this and that, but the reality is I think he is waiting until Daddy's mates tell him what to do to get out of this mess.

Anonymous said...

We are not completely buggered. We could finish the job and invade Syria and Iran as well. If we do it before they get atomic weapons we might well win (with Israeli help) and then the oil will be ours and I can be happy in my Land Rover. Oh, I forgot the Saudis. let's leave them until we have a democratic republic here at home and then stuff them as well.
Bollocks to being nice to foreigners.

Benedict White said...

Billy, Forgive me for pointing this out, but we ought to be able to hold down Iraq and Afghanistan, but we just are not doing it.

we are just not putting the bodies in the field to do the current job, let alone a bigger job.

Anonymous said...

We are not holding down Iraq and Afghanistan because we are trying to do it as helpers to the local police and army.
If you let the soldiers do it without the politicians it will be a lot more bloody but over quicker.
However, we really shouldn't be in Iraq at all. We shouldn't have an army where soldiers have to spend their own money to improve their equipment. We shouldn't be sending territorials to do professional soldiers work (my local postman has done 2 tours of Iraq and 1 of Bosnia) and we shouldn't have any government that has no ex military men in positions of authority.
Will DC and the Conservatives do any better though?

Benedict White said...

Billy I agree with you on the equipment issue. However I don't on the others you raise.

In order to "win the peace" we do need to do things in certain ways and being excesively brutal is not one of them.

The issue after the initial invasion was lack of resource and thinking Iran and Syria either could or would control their own borders.

Anonymous said...

"The issue after the initial invasion was lack of resource and thinking Iran and Syria either could or would control their own borders.

Benedict, I cannot believe that anyone thought that syria and Iran would control their own borders. Why on earth would they? Where is the advantage for them?

Benedict White said...

Neither can I Billy, but that was the working assumption. The British army has only recently started patroling the desert border with Iran. There seems to have been the working assumption that we could scare them into it. Fine, but only works if they have the resource and are scared enough. Neither appears to have been the case.

It gets worse though. We didn't guard the ammo dumps either, or the ministries, and infrastructure. In short it has become a right mess.

For more have a look at this earlier article of mine:
http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/2006/11/mess-in-iraq-its-all-our-fault-offciail.html