Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Glick: Iraq is a regional conflict; Petreaus gets it


Covering for the enemy -Caroline Glick

[T]he Bush administration has finally buckled under Congressional pressure and is ready to give US lawmakers a full briefing on the September 6 IDF bombing raid against the North Korean-built nuclear installation in Syria.

[R]ather than make clear to Congress and to the US public that the war in Iraq is not an Iraqi war per se but a key battleground in a regional war in which Iran and Syria have combined forces on multiple fronts in a bid to defeat the US and its allies, the Bush administration obfuscates that central truth.

For the past five years, key administration officials have repeated the bizarre claim that Iran and Syria share the US's interest in bringing stability to Iraq...

[Thus] the administration itself holds a major portion of responsibility for the fact that five years after US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, the majority of Americans believes that the US doesn't have an interest in what happens in post-Saddam Iraq and should simply remove its forces from the country at the first opportunity.

If the [Bush] administration was less concerned about obfuscating Syrian and Iranian centrality in the war, more Americans would understand why it is essential that the US not allow Iraq to fall into their hands. Indeed, a larger number of Americans would understand that Iran and Syria are waging this proxy war against coalition forces and Iraqis in a bid to advance their goal of regional dominance.

[T]he US official who has been most consistent in highlighting Iran's central role in Iraq is US Commander General David Petreaus. Petreaus, whose job it is to win the war in Iraq, apparently understand[s] what the administration has spent the past five years ignoring. [T]o secure public support to fight a long war, they need to tell the American public what the war is about, who the US is fighting and what is at stake.

[A]s it wages war against the US in Iraq and against Israel in Lebanon and Gaza, supported by its Syrian and North Korean allies, Iran moves brazenly and swiftly forward in its bid to acquire nuclear weapons. [A]s it moves, it drags the US and Israel ever closer to a great war.

[H]ow can the US be expected to handle the coming conflagration when it demurs from explaining [the] current situation to its public?
[Jerusalem Post]

No comments: