Inside Iraq: Non-Combat Jobs

America''s real war aims are another matter entirely, and they are coming into focus as the situation on the ground develops. After all, why assume that what is currently happening in Iraq isn''t part of the program? Surely the Americans knew the dismemberment of the Iraqi state would have to mean Shi''ite hegemony, an empowered Iran, and the prospect of a regionalized conflagration. It defies belief that they didn''t: our rulers may be evil, but they sure as heck aren''t stupid,We have every reason to believe that the death and decomposition of the Iraqi state is precisely what they had in mind when they decided to invade in the first place. Furthermore, a civil war had to be the outcome of a sudden vacuum of legitimacy, and it was bound to be a religious conflict, pitting Sunnis against Shi''ites. Looked at in a larger context, it makes perfect sense that the War Party is now playing the "Shi''ite card," as the visit of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim to Washington indicates. Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), met with the president, chatted with Condi, and took a tour of the Pentagon. If we''re looking for the true origins of the "surge" strategy in Iraq ? the prospect of adding some 30,000 troops to "stabilize" Baghdad and rebel provinces ? we need look no further than Hakim''s Dec. 4 speech [.pdf] to the U.S. Institute of Peace:
The War Party is desperate to provoke the Iranians into a military conflict, and they are pulling out all the stops to do so. With economic sanctions against Iran already in place, and likely to be ratcheted up ? along with the anti-Iranian propaganda campaign ? the likelihood of war with the mullahs of Tehran is an eventuality that seems almost fated to occur, whether or not the American people support it. Less than half now believe a war with Iran in the next year is likely: however, I predict that number is bound to increase as 2007 drags on. The chances of war rise as we examine the positions of various prominent candidates for president on the Iran question, with even alleged peacenik Barack Obama openly musing that American military action is an "option."
George W. Bush has been savagely criticized and mercilessly mocked for declaring "mission accomplished" at the very moment when the anti-American insurgency was birthed, but in retrospect this makes perfect sense ? if one realizes that our mission was the utter destruction of Iraq. As a dress rehearsal for the larger event ? the coming Sunni-Shi''ite civil war that will go down in history as comparable to Europe''s Thirty Years'' War pitting Catholics against Protestants ? Iraq is truly a "model" for the rest of the region, albeit not in a way anybody but the perpetrators of this criminal policy expected.

Want to find out how deployment is? Coming home? Check out the rest of the Inside Iraq series for a candid look into army life.

LETS ALL GO TO WAR!