Mideast Realpolitik

As right as progressives have been on this war from the get go, we were wrong not to consider the realpolitik implications of what would happen. Not that we could have influenced anything, but it would have been an extra canary in the coal mine.

Josh Marshall has the full rundown, but the long and short of it is that the neocons were totally up for starting a region-wide civil war so they could get their hands on some black gold and set up some pro-U.S. states. Not only are these people psychotic, but they have also been wrong about everything, all the time.

The way I see things playing out is that if this civil war spreads beyond Iraqi borders we will have jumpstarted a conflict that will rage throughout the entire region. Shi'a states will go to war with Sunni states. It will not matter whose side we take, for no matter how much they might hate each other they surely hate the U.S. more than anyone else. No matter who wins a majority of the Arab world will bear nothing but enmity toward the U.S.

All so George W. Bush can gamble at greatness. No matter how badly history proves him to be a failure some crackpot will come along and attribute everything good that happens from here on out to Bush, much like Republicans like to attribute the economic growth in the 90s to Reagan and stability in Chile to Pinochet.

It is what it is, but it did not and does not necessarily have to be that way.