Flypaper Theory

I don't know if this is to be believed -- it appears legitimate but cannot be 100-percent confirmed. From the current (Sept. 2006) Harper's Magazine:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

From a document found in the safe house of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, after he was killed by U.S. forces on June 7. The document was released to the Associated Press by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie.

The best way to get out of this crisis is to entangle the American forces in a war against Iran. A war between the Americans and Iran will have many benefits in favor of the Sunni and the resistance, such as:

1. Freeing the Sunni people in Iraq, who are 30 percent of the population and under Shiite rule.
2. Drowning the Americans in another war that will engage many of their forces.
3. Acquiring new weapons from the Iranian side, either during the battles or after the fall of Iran.
4. Enticing Iran to help the resistance, because of its need for our help.

How to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran? It is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian danger by doing the following:

1. Disseminating threatening messages attributed to the Iranian Shiites.
2. Kidnapping hostages and implicating the Shiite Iranian side.
3. Advertising that Iran has chemical and nuclear weapons and is threatening the West.
4. Executing bombings in the West and planting Iranian Shiite fingerprints and evidence.
5. Declaring the existence of a relationship between Iran and terrorist groups.
6. Disseminating bogus confessions showing that Iran is in possession of weapons of mass destruction or that there are attempts by Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America and the West.

Let us hope for success and for God's help.

You would think that the neoconservatives advocating war with Iran might rethink their position considering that this war is exactly what al-Zarqawi was hoping we'd be dumb enough to do. But, then again, these same hawks got us into the war in Iraq knowing full well that this was exactly what Osama bin Laden was hoping we'd be dumb enough to do. Apparently the neoconservatives think you shouldn't negotiate with terrorists -- you should just capitulate to their pipe dreams without negotiation.

Comments

[bulbul]

You would think that the neoconservatives advocating war with Iran might rethink their position
That's your problem, right there. Rethink. Rethink.

Oh and let us not forget that the so-called al-Qaida in Iraq and Zarqawi are relatively minor players in the Mess'O'Potamian theater.

[cjmr]

Yah. Maybe we should just try to get them to think their position. (As opposed to just reacting.)

[LL]

A few years ago, I wouldn't have thought that even Bushco was stupid enough to go to war against Iran. It's not that I didn't think Bushco was dumb, I just didn't think they were THAT dumb. Now, I'm actually not sure if they ARE that stupid. To those Bush supporters who think war with Iran is a dandy idea, I'm wondering exactly who they propose to fight a war with Iran with, ie, we don't have enough people in Iraq now, how does anyone think we're going to invade a much larger, much more populous country that would see us coming from miles away? These hawks appear to think that tons of other countries are dying (heh heh) to get in ANOTHER Middle East conflict with us calling all the shots, since we've done such a bang-up job of it so far.

I guess that's one of those insignificant details that George and his supporters have spent the last 5 years swatting away. They're big-picture people, they can't be bogged down with piddling little details like our troop strength or Iran's capabilities.

I read something somewhere (I'm very sorry can't remember the details, but it was a major publication, Rolling Stone? and not sure how reliable that might be) that the Pentagon actually has plans to draft people in certain jobs, ie, medical and electronics people, not front line positions, although I guess that could change. And these drafts would apply to people as old as age 42. Good to know they have a plan.

[bulbul]

One more thing re rethinking their positions:
one of the declared purposes of the Israeli bombing campaign was to instigate a popular upheaval against Hizballah. Apparently, this didn't work. The neocon warmongers obviously expect the opressed masses of Iran to rise up against the mullah regime as soon as the first missiles start hitting Tehran. I wonder whether the result of the "Israel-Hizballah war" will convince them to reconsider.
And let's keep in mind that the first few weeks of Iraq invasion were a relative walk in the park mainly because the Iraqi army decided not to put up too much of a fight. Anyone who expects the same of the Iranian army (which is much better trained and equipped) is nuts.

[Grumpy]

Flash-forward to Condi Rice's speech to the UN Security Council, explaining why war is necessary:

1. ...threatening messages attributed to the Iranian Shiites.
2. ...hostages... implicating the Shiite Iranian side.
3. ...Iran has chemical and nuclear weapons and is threatening the West.
4. ...bombings in the West... Iranian Shiite fingerprints and evidence.
5. ...a relationship between Iran and terrorist groups.
6. ...confessions showing that Iran is in possession of weapons of mass destruction... attempts by Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America and the West.

"Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries."

[Vanya]

The scary thing is that I think the neocons don't believe they have a choice. They really believe we're in a "Great Game" between the US and China, and maybe Russia, to control the world's oil and natural gas resources. To the neocons people like Zarqawi and Bin Laden are of no real account - useful as cover maybe, but in the end it's all about grabbing the oil.

Yeah, I know this sounds paranoid. But go read Juan Cole. Plus to me the oil scenario makes more sense than assuming our leaders really are blithering idiots, but your mileage may vary.

[Beth]

bulbul,
You should read Hersch's article on Lebanon if you haven't already. Scary stuff.

the oil scenario makes more sense than assuming our leaders really are blithering idiots

I don't see it as an either-or. I don't don't know what combination of factors led up to the decision to invade, but I strongly suspect that if Iraq's largest export were dates, Saddam would still be in power. Yet, though I opposed the war from the beginning, I never suspected it would turn out as badly as it has. I figured we'd go in, depose Saddam, and install a new dictator who was equally brutal, but who was friendly to America and American oil companies. Maybe that really was their intention and a confluence of post-invasion circumstances forced them to go in a different direction, but maybe creating an Iraqi democracy really was their goal from the beginning. That still doesn't take "blithering idiots" off the table though. The phrase doesn't seem like an unreasonable description of people who think that democracy will spontaneously appear whenever a dictator is overthrown. But maybe they really thought they could impose democracy, or rather a puppet government dressed up to look like democracy. Maybe they assumed the Iraqi people would be so eager for freedom they wouldn't look too closely at the package. In retrospect, that looks like shockingly bad judgement, but I suppose it's still a step up from idiocy.

[bulbul]

You should read Hersch's article on Lebanon if you haven't already. Scary stuff.
Whoa. I just finished it reading it and then alt+tabbed here :o)

[Jesurgislac]

Beth: Maybe that really was their intention and a confluence of post-invasion circumstances forced them to go in a different direction, but maybe creating an Iraqi democracy really was their goal from the beginning. That still doesn't take "blithering idiots" off the table though.

Nope. Part of the problem in Iraq was that the war was being run by a committee. To some of the committee, the objective was PNAC - install a US-friendly government in Iraq and call it democracy. (To many right-wingers, any anti-American government is not democracy by definition, and any pro-American government gets a democracy pass: we see this from Nicaragua to Lebanon, from Chile to Pakistan.)

But to others on the committee, an important objective was to ensure that any profitable business out of the war went to US corporations who were big Republican donors. And they'd already noted that a big, big post-war source of profit would be the reconstruction.

Had the two "sides" on the committee disagreed, a fruitful argument about which was more important might actually have led to something being accomplished. Unfortunately, it looks as if they cheerfully agreed that the two objectives were perfectly reconcilable, because it was important to bring capitalism back to Iraq and end this messy state-owned business system which gave most people thier jobs.

The plan was - initially - for every state-owned industry in Iraq except for oil to be sold off to the highest bidder, with no nasty quibbles about keeping the bidders Iraqi. The end result would have been an Iraq where virtually every major industry was owned by foreign corporations. But it was borne on them that this was an illegal sale: a foreign occupier is not entitled to sell off the assets of the country, only the country's legitimate government can do that. Appointing a puppet government won't work, though they tried: the government has to be legitimate, and the only way to do that beyond argument was to have it be elected by a significant majority of Iraqis. And the sale had to be legal, because otherwise no major corporation would touch it: they wouldn't want, years down the line, to have their property claimed back by the Iraqi government because the US had no right to sell it to them.

But this plan went on for long enough to make most Iraqis employed by state industries realize that the occupation intended to make them lose their jobs and their country lose these industries. The plan might even have succeeded, if not for the insurrection - which the economic chaos I think partly inspired.

If the US had been content to let the Iraqis keep their country going as it had been until a legal government was elected, there might well have been less chaos - and if the US had wanted democratic elections first, instead of appointing a puppet government in the hopes that the puppets would let them sell off the assets (no doubt they would have if they could) - then the story of the occupation might have been different. But the elections were delayed, in the end, until after the US 2004 elections, in case the results were bad for Bush.

And of course there's the fact that contracts for reconstruction, which should have gone to Iraqis, instead went at vast expense to US corporations - who got more money for doing less.