« Information on How to Build an Atom Bomb on U.S. Government Web Site | Main | Election Day Woes—Again »

November 07, 2006

Comments

Brigitte

Lancer, thanks for bringing up this very interesting theory. I, however, doubt that those who pushed for the invasion of Iraq were really targeting Iran and Tehran's alleged design to remove Saddam Hussein and his regime. To be sure, the Iranians never forgot the bloody war with Iraq, the treatment of the Shiite majority by Saddam Hussein and his fellow-Sunnis, and the secular nature of Saddam's regime. But even if Tehran managed to get some agents into the Iraqi power structure (which would have been very difficult to begin with in Saddam's system), it would have been more than difficult to pull off a successful coup.
I also think that by now this justification would have been added by the laundry list of reasons.

So--no, I doubt that this kind of theory was behind the administration's decision in favor of war. This desire of neo- conservatives goes back to the first Gulf war. And oil played into it as well.

Lancer

Brigitte,

Regarding the reasons for invading Iraq: I was wondering what your take would be on the theory that the invasion was not about Iraq per se, but about Iran, or more specifically, Iran's potential influence on Iraq. I am basing this theory on Michael Ware's article of June 2005 in the NYT about evidence recently uncovered that Iran had agents in Iraq's political structure. Given the demographics of Shiites and Sunni in each country, is it out of the realm of possibility that Iran could have been planning a coup in Iraq?

Of course, if this was known to the U.S., it would have put us in a dilemma: Invade Iraq (the easier military target), but put forward other reasons (since saying "We thought Iran was going to take over Iraq" was never going to work),or do nothing and let Iraq become a puppet state of Iran, at which time it would be too late.

The comments to this entry are closed.

Never miss a post
Name: 
Your email address:*
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
Blog powered by Typepad
Member since 03/2006