Bush helps boost the power of fundamentalist Iran

President George W. Bush has opened the door for Iran to make a fresh grab for power in the Middle East.

That is one result of the Bush decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein and destroy his long-term hope to dominate the region.

The American led invasion has eliminated Saddam's "buffer" against neighboring Iran and opened a vacuum for growing Iranian power. An Iran pledged to eliminate Israel and seemingly on a path toward nuclear weapons.

The very same Iran which had tossed out the American-backed Shah, held US hostages in late 1979, and humbled the greatest power on earth.

Now that Iraq splinters into religious conflict and terrorism, the American occupation has taken over the task of holding together a "buffer" against Iran.

Of course the Bush Administration hopes to isolate, undermine, and overthrow Iranian fundamentalists with possible sanctions against development of Iranian nuclear power.

Only time will tell how much of a long term boost the Bush policy gives to the very same revived Shite militant fundamentalist Iran which President Reagan had built up Saddam to oppose -- way back during the Iran Iraq war of the 1980's. (See photo above)

Ironically some who pushed for the invasion of Iraq hoped the overthrow of Saddam would open the door for revived American power in the Middle East -- some 20 years after the Iranians threw the Americans out.

For background perspective on the drive for an American "comeback," see this writer's Human Rights Justifies a March Toward War.

It is anyone's guess what will happen if and when the Americans leave Iraq. Some like Barbara K. Bodine, coordinator for post-conflict reconstruction for Baghdad and the central region of Iraq in 2003, have argued American withdrawal might actually promote internal reconciliation in Iraq.

This writer explores the growing American bipartisan consensus for withdrawal in the blog Exploding the Iraq Illusion. For exhaustive collections of online texts, see Iraq Withdrawal and Exit Plans and Insurgent Iraq, both by the Project on Defense Alternatives.

For more immediate material on the rise of Iran, see the analysis in the Los Angeles Times, excerpts below:

******
2/18/06 Los Angeles Times
NEWS ANALYSIS
Iran Was on Edge; Now It's on Top
The war in Iraq has bolstered the regime's influence in the region and made it bolder.

By Megan K. Stack and Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writers

BAGHDAD — The Islamic government in neighboring Iran watched with trepidation in March 2003 when U.S.-led troops stormed Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime and start remaking the political map of the Mideast.

In retrospect, the Islamic Republic could have celebrated: The war has left America's longtime nemesis with profound influence in the new Iraq and pushed it to the apex of power in the region.

Emboldened by its new status and shielded by deep oil reserves, Tehran is pressing ahead with its nuclear program, daring the international community to impose sanctions. Iran is a Shiite Muslim nation with an ethnic Persian majority, and the blossoming of its influence has fueled the ambitions of long-repressed Shiites throughout the Arab world.

At the same time, Tehran has tightened alliances with groups such as Hamas, which recently won Palestinian elections, and with governments in Damascus and Beijing.

In the 1980s, Iran spent eight years and thousands of lives waging a war to overthrow Hussein, whose regime buffered the Sunni Muslim-dominated Arab world from Iran. But in the end, it took the U.S.-led invasion to topple Iraq's dictator and allow Iranian influence to spread through a chaotic, battle-torn country.

Now Iraq's fledgling democracy has placed power in the hands of the nation's Shiite majority and its Kurdish allies, many of whom lived as exiles in Iran and maintain strong religious, cultural and linguistic ties to it.

I'm too much of a Coward: Go see for Yourselves

What a friend wrote to me......
"It's OK to burn the American Flag, to preach 'destroy Israel,' --- but not to publish cartoons offensive to Muslims. What am I missing? "

*******

Yes, what are we missing in discussing whether freedom of the press includes the freedom to run cartoons offensive to a religious or ethnic group?

And who decides what is offensive? Who decides when wisdom demands retraint rather than provocative polemic? Should we trim our sails when angry protestors get violent -- or reassert our freedoms to avoid intimidation?

We all sometimes thrive on double standards.

Some in the Middle East offended by cartoon satires on Islam have now proclaimed their right to intervene and censor the culture and media management of Europe and the United States. Perhaps that is only fair given the West's many interventions in the lives and cultures of the Mideast.

In the end our own excesses can be our greatest enemies.

"Insensitive" Danish cartoons satirizing the prophet Mohammed were a gift to radical Islamic agitators, who could use them to mobilize mobs, grab headlines, to intimidate corporations, media, educational institutions, and governments.

Burnings of American flags during the Vietnam war were sometimes a gift to patriotic extremists who could rally popular support by casting anti-war activists as traitors stabbing American soldiers in the back.

Like the cartoonist, we all can hand our "enemies" a weapon to club us with when we behave provocatively without wisdom or balance.

Then our enemies can go on to "shoot themselves in the foot" when they respond with foolish intimidation and violence which reinforces negative stereotypes of them. Which appears to confirm the negative image of Islam in the cartoons.

We can all benefit from the excesses of our enemies.

***********

This blogger himself had to make the decision: should he post the offending cartoons here? Should he omit them out of intimidation and/or a sense of wisdom or taste? And what would the host server of this blog do if this blogger posted the offending cartoons?

So let me be both wise and cowardly and simply steer you to a web address where you can see the offending cartoons for yourself.

Gentle Reader, you definitely need to see these cartoons to fully understand what has triggered the reaction. You must see them to understand the sensibilities of the offended. How nice that the web gives me the opportunity to cowardly censor my own copy -- yet give you the opportunity to "see for yourselves."

So visit this site and see for yourself.

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/sarticle.php?id=12146

Yes, every person can pose as a victim of some offense. We can all do battle to preserve or grow our turf -- and let our own sensitivities fuel our hunger to put down our real or imagined enemies.

In the end we all share something in common: our own excesses can be our greatest enemies.