Tony Blair's ignorance of Iraq, and now Iran too?

The main impression I got from both Mr Blair's evidence to the inquiry last year and his autobiography was his extraordinary ignorance of Iraq. 

 Thus writes Patrick Cockburn in the Independent (ht) ... And Cockburn adds:

Mr Blair's enthusiasm for a confrontation with Iran stems partly from the fact that he never seems to have understood what went wrong for him in Iraq. It was not so much the war against Saddam Hussein that doomed the venture as the occupation which followed. He and President George Bush might have got away with overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his regime if they had swiftly withdrawn and handed over real power to an interim Iraqi government.

They did the exact opposite. Instead of withdrawing, the Americans and British occupied the whole country and showed every sign of wanting to remain in control. The occupation was, as Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi Foreign Minister and one of the more pro-Western of Iraqi leaders, said, "the mother of all mistakes".

Interesting to note, BTW, how the Wall Street Journal viewed Tony Blair dealing with questions from the Chilcot Commission ....  "The prosecution of Tony Blair" .... muahahahaha  .... Can Faux Noose beat WSJ's headline?  (Update: in light of the comment--below--I now wish all the more for the prosecution of these war criminals.  But, we will have to start with Kissinger for his Vietnam and Chile decisions.)

Unfortunately, our President froze any potential for investigative commissions by declaring that he was only moving forward and not looking back.  One of the worst decisions he made--well, good politics, but atrocious for principles and democracy.

The "god" debate next week: Hitchens v. Blair

November 26th is the day that Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair will debate the following resolution:

Be it resolved, religion is a force of good for the world

If one should wonder whether Hitchens will be well enough, given the intensity of the cancer treatment that he is undergoing, here is an update in this report in the Guardian:

Whatever his health regime, it doesn't appear to have affected his work levels. The pugnacious weekly Slate column, the far-reaching literary essays for the Atlantic Monthly, and the Vanity Fair dispatches are all filed on time. And he continues to participate in public debates. Last month in New York he sliced through the Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan's problematising evasions with stinging precision, and later this month he's taking on Tony Blair in Toronto.

The debate begins at 7:00 pm Toronto time.  Should be an interesting one.  I hope a former student, who is now pursuing graduate studies in philosophy in Toronto, will attend the debate; but, I bet the event was sold out long time ago.  Well, I would rather that she focused on her term papers :)

This President, too, bullshits about the Iraq War

Joe Conason has a thoughtful essay on the "The truths about Iraq that Obama couldn't utter"
Glenn Greenwald is sick and tired of the "The "nobody-could-have-known" excuse"--though this particular essay is not directed at Obama's speech, but fits into the overall dominant narrative. And reminds us about Dick Cheney's explanations (which are right on the mark!) on why the US did not go all the way in Iraq--the first time.


Meanwhile, Tony "the poodle" Blair is publishing his memoirs, which is nothing but a crass route to making money from all the pain and suffering his decision inflicted.  And cries over the metaphorical spilt milk blood:

Iraq is his most divisive legacy, but Blair says he is not sorry for his decision to enter the U.S.-led war — although he wept for its victims. He is donating all proceeds from the book to a charity for wounded troops.

"I ... regret with every fiber of my being the loss of those who died," Blair writes. "Tears, though there have been many, do not encompass it."

But, he adds, "on the basis of what we do know now, I still believe that leaving Saddam in power was a bigger risk to our security than removing him."

"I can't regret the decision to go to war," he says, although he admits that "never did I guess the nightmare that unfolded" once Saddam was gone.

He knows his position is unpopular: "Friends opposed to the war think I'm being obstinate; others, less friendly, think I'm delusional."

Yes, obstinate and delusional. Thanks for saying that!

Speaking of delusional, the biggest of 'em all, George Bush, has his own book coming out soon.
Can't wait to hold it upside down and read it to the kids in the park as a great halloween prank.

Finally, why ignore Paul Wolfowitz's airbrushing!

Oh, how much I miss George Carlin!

The decision-maker for Her Majesty, or Bush with a British accent :)

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Israel-Palestine two state solution: wishful thinking?

Recently, the former prime minister of Britain, Tony Blair, recalled his meeting with the former president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, when both were in power.  When Blair asked Musharraf what help he would like, Musharraf replied, “a peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.” Musharraf’s comment underscores the global geopolitical implications of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. 

It is an interesting irony that a Pakistani president highlighted the urgency of Israeli-Palestinian peace, given that Pakistan and India have not been at peace with each other since their creation as a two-state solution to the Hindu-Muslim issues.  So, when a two-state solution is often called for to put an end to violence in the Middle East, I wonder if we might be able to learn from the creation of India and Pakistan.

As World War II ended, it was clear that it was only a matter of time before the British Raj also came to an end.  The British government, and the leaders in India, realized that they had to figure out a solution to the increasingly incompatible political options when it came to the issue of a separate homeland for India’s Muslims, who were the largest minority group.

While historians continue to debate on the true intentions of the various entities involved, the result was a two-state solution—India and Pakistanwere carved out as two independent countries in August 1947. 

The creation of Pakistan was a rather strange case of a two-state solution because of the contrast with other “stan” countries.  While Afghanistan, for instance, means the land of Afghans, and Kazakhstan refers to the land of Kazakhs, Pakistan does not mean it is the land of “Pakis” because there is no ethnic group of that name.  Pakistan was a name concocted to emphasize the different ethnic groups and territories: Punjab, Afghans Kashmir, Indus, and Sind.

Furthermore, Pakistan was to be composed of two territories—West Pakistan and East Pakistan—that were almost 2000 miles apart and separated by India in between.  In such a formulation, the very absence of “Bengal” in the acronym ought to have been a warning sign on the coming breakup of the country.  After all, East Pakistan was what was referred to as East Bengal in the latter days of the Raj, where Bengali-speaking Muslims were the overwhelming majority.  Thus, I suppose it was no surprise when the Bengalis of East Pakistan wanted to be free from the domination by “Pakis” of West Pakistan, which is what happened in 1971 when the independent Bangladesh came into existence.

And then, of course, the unresolved tensions over Kashmir, with both India and Pakistan claiming the territory as their own.  This territorial turf war continues on to this day, which almost triggered a nuclear-war in 1998.

The parallels with the Israeli-Palestinian tensions are not that dissimilar.  A two-state solution is being proposed, but even now the Palestinian territories are in two separate geographic areas that are not contiguous—West Bank and the Gaza Strip—with Israel’s political boundaries in between the two.  And, there are serious differences of opinions regarding Jerusalem—very similar to the Kashmir question.

Tensions between East and West Pakistan escalated after the two-state solution was implemented.  However, in the Palestinian case, over the last couple of years Gaza and West Bank have been operating pretty much independent of each other, controlled and administered by political rivals—Hamas and Fatah. 

A two-state solution did work, for instance, when the two countries of Slovakia and the Czech Republic were created out of Czechoslovakia.  But, the geopolitics there did not have the kinds of political and personal intensity that characterizes the Indo-Pak situation, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Similarly, the collapse of the Soviet Union, which led to the birthing of new countries, like Estonia, was to a large extent nothing but a reversal to roots—after all, Estonia was gobbled up by the Soviet Union that was intent on expanding its sphere of influence and, therefore, Estonia’s independence was not really a “two-state solution.”

A two-state solution has not delivered peace and prosperity for India and Pakistan, with disagreements and violence continuing on even after almost 62 years.  I, therefore, worry that a two-state solution bringing about everlasting Israel-Palestinian peace might be wishful thinking.  But, in the absence of any other option, here is to hoping that it will pave the path for stability and peace sooner than later.