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Yesterday, General Petraeus wouldn’t budge from his position, which was really quite simply stated:
We have no idea how long we’ll be fighting in Iraq.
We have no idea how much it will cost.
We have no idea whether we’ll win or lose.
We have no idea how many will die.
We have no idea how to define victory.
Oh, and our enemies keep changing.
First we give money and arms
to the Sunnis (supported by Al Qaeda)
against the Shia (supported by Iran).
And lo and behold, the Sunni become more powerful and dangerous!
Then we gave money and arms
to the Shia (supported by Iran)
against the Sunni (supported by Al Qaeda).
And lo and behold, the Shia are becoming more poweful and dangerous.
Maybe we should help the Sunni (Al Qaeda in Iraq) again?
Rinse and Repeat for 100 years.
And don’t forget the intra-Sunni and intra-Shia battles too, upon which we have to take sides!
Rinse and repeat for 100 years.
(Remember when dangerous Sunnis (led by Saddam) were evenly matched by dangerous Shias (led by Iran)? Sure, a million were killed in the Iraq-Iran War of 1982 and we armed both sides to some extent, but no land was conquered and no Americans died. Hard to believe those were the good ole’ days, but in retrospect, they were.)
Who’s Fighting Whom?
It’s not just Shia, Sunni, and Kurd. It’s Al Qaeda and Al Sadr. The Iraqi Government and Ours. Provincial Warlords, Iraqi Nationalists, former Baathists, foreign jihadists, and lots of folks just trying to survive.
Guest: Iraqi Raed Jarrar, Iraq consultant for the American Friends Service Committee, explains who’s fighting whom among the various players in the Iraqi civil war.
As you might expect, American taxpayers are financing and arming virtually all of them.