Iraq is not really about Iraq

There is great debate concerning what to do about the "civil quagmire" in Iraq. President Bush says that the stakes are high, but the honest truth is that the stakes have nothing to do with the future of the Iraqi people. Rather, what is really at stake is the whole Neoconservative foreign policy agenda, which is driven in large part by the agenda of the so-called Pro-Israel Lobby, which in turn focuses on the security of the State of Israel. To abandon the administration's push in Iraq would effectively abandon the heart and soul of the Neoconservative agenda, which would leave the Pro-Israel Lobby and the right-wing hawks in Israel in a quagmire of their own. This is why the administration will persist in "staying the course" even as they stop using those specific words.

It is all well and good for Liberal Democrats to call for the firing of Rumsfeld and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but the liklihood of either happening is rather slim since such acts would be a hard-core "cut and run" which would decimate the Neoconservative foreign policy agenda of "rollback."

"Staying the course" in Iraq has never been a matter of helping the Iraqi people establish a functional democracy, but simply a matter of providing a steppingstone for the Neoconservative "rollback" of what they consider "failed states" and "rogue states", or more simply any country which appears to be on unfriendly terms with Israel.

If it seems stupid that Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush seem to be blindly continuing to ride a "dead horse" policy in Iraq and the Middle East, bear in mind that it is a horse that represents all that they hold dear and they would be loathe to abandon this horse, no matter what.

Also, some minimal level of "success" in Iraq is absolutely needed to give the Neoconservatives leverage in pursuing their ultimate target: Iran.

-- Jack Krupansky