Iranian President Says What TV Pundits Can't: American Empire Is Almost Over

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offended quite a few people with his pointed remarks at the UN, as CNN reports:

Ahmadinejad: 'American empire' nearing its end

"As long as the aggressors, because of their financial, political and propaganda powers, not only escape punishment, but even claim righteousness, and as long as wars are started and nations are enslaved in order to win votes in elections, not only will the problems of the global community remain unsolved, but they will be increasingly exacerbated," the Iranian leader said.

He accused the United States of oppressing Iraqis with six years of occupation, saying Americans were "still seeking to solidify their position in the political geography of the region and to dominate oil resources."

This is particularly offensive to American media and political types not just because it's true, but because it's verboten truth.

Nobody in American TV-land can say these things, even though they are obviously correct.

CNN continues:

Meanwhile, he said, Palestinians have undergone "60 years of carnage and invasion ... at the hands of some criminal and occupying Zionists."

He said Zionists in Israel "have forged a regime through collecting people from various parts of the world and bringing them to other people's land, by displacing, detaining and killing the true owners of that land."

The Security Council, he said, "cannot do anything, and sometimes under pressure from a few bullying powers, even paves the way for supporting these Zionist murders."

Unable to refute any of this, CNN defers to a famous lie:

He stopped short of calling for Israel to be politically wiped off the map as he has in the past.

The fact that he has never said anything of the sort is clearly of no consequence to CNN -- not when there's an opportunity to fan the flames of fiction.

In the fictional media account, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is dangerous because of fearsome weapons that he doesn't have, and threatening statements that he's never made.

But in reality, he's a dangerous man because he suggests things like:

"a free referendum in Palestine for determining and establishing the type of state in the entire Palestinian lands."

Such a referendum -- direct independent democracy at its finest -- can never be allowed to happen, of course, because that would be the end of Israel.

And that's why the [Jewish]

Anti-Defamation League released a statement saying the Iranian leader showed he "is deeply infected with anti-Semitism" and displayed "the true threat the Iranian regime poses to Israel, the United States and the West."

The ADL says this so often and it gets published so everywhere and so unquestioningly...

First and foremost, Ahmadinejad is an anti-Zionist. Zionism is a political philosophy. Ahmadinejad doesn't like it much. That's his prerogative. I don't like it much, either. That's my prerogative.

Anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism. It's not even close. Only the deliberately, willfully ignorant -- and those who wish you were equally ignorant -- fail to see the distinction.

It's not the "anti-Semitism" that makes Ahmadinejad dangerous. That's only a cover story. The true threat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad poses -- to Israel, to the United States and to the West -- lies in his willingness to speak the verboten truth.

And that's a big problem for our "news" providers, because they can't just cancel his show.

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Get Ready To Rumble: Petraeus Blames Iran for Green Zone Attack

Chris Floyd's site has been hacked too much; it's up again at the moment but who knows for how long?

In event of emergency, Chris will post at his original blogspot site, Empire Burlesque Now dot blogspot dot com. In the meantime I will try to mirror some of his work here, just in case.

Here's the latest from Chris, by kind permission, as always.

Still Not Worried? Petraeus Blames Iran for Green Zone Attack

Yesterday, we noted the story that the Saudi government is now preparing plans to deal with "any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards" that may arise from an attack on Iran's nuclear reactors. This was reported by a top Saudi newspaper, Okaz, and relayed by a leading German news service, dpa -- one day after Dick Cheney paid a visit to the kingdom. As we noted, no one knows exactly what was said at that confab of allied authoritarians -- but something sure lit a fire under the Saudis, and convinced them that urgent action is needed to brace for the lethal overspill from a strike on Iran.

Now today comes word that the sainted General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq -- and recepient of perhaps the most copious bipartisan tongue bath ever given to a serving military officer by the U.S. Congress -- has blamed Iran for the multiple mortar attack on Baghdad's Green Zone on Sunday. As the BBC reports:

The most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday's bombardment of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets.

He said Iran was adding what he described as "lethal accelerants" to a very combustible mix.

That's not all. After praising himself for his brilliant "counterinsurgency" masterstroke of paying Sunni insurgents and violent religious extremists to kill other Iraqis instead of Americans for awhile -- while also arming, training and funding the Shiite extremists now in charge of the Iraqi army and security forces to kill and torture other Iraqis -- Petraeus went on to blame Iran for being the main cause of violence in Iraq. (For a true picture of what Petraeus and the vaunted "surge" has actually wrought in Iraq, see Michael Schwartz's detailed and devastating report, "The Battle of Bagdhad."). From the BBC:

In an interview with BBC world affairs editor John Simpson, Gen Petraeus said violence in Iraq was being perpetuated by Iran's Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards.

"The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone yesterday, for example... were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets," he said, adding that the groups that fired them were funded and trained by the Quds Force.

"All of this in complete violation of promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts."

The Iranians, of course, have deep, intricate and longstanding ties to the "Iraqi leaders" whom Petraeus is now helping maintain in "power" -- if that's the word for the operations of a gang of brutal kleptocrats whose residence in office is sustained wholly by the foreign military forces who invaded their country at the order of another gang of brutal kleptocrats in Washington. But Petraeus -- and the White House kleptos -- have continually pushed the line that Iran is attacking a government led by their ideological and religious allies, in order to....what, exactly? Replace them with,er, ideological and religious allies? Well, logic has never been the strong suit of the Crawford Caligula and his courtiers, who believe they can "create their own reality" by the assertion of imperial will -- and by the expenditure of human cannon fodder. (Petraeus' remarks came on the day that the American military death toll in Iraq reached 4,000.)

Actually, of course, these charges aren't meant to make logical or geopolitical sense. They are simply being tossed out there, week after week, month after month, to "catapult the propaganda" for war with Iran "at the time, place, and in the manner of our choosing," to quote Bush's doctrine of preemptive war in the official "National Defense Strategy of the United States." Or as I noted here last year about an earlier round of charges:

[Petraeus] is asserting as unassailable fact accusations which have never been substantiated, not even by the Regime's own intelligence agencies -- whose bar for "confirming" provocative intelligence is, as we all know, preternaturally low. Petraeus doesn't intend for his words to be taken seriously -- that is, not in the real world, where military attacks by one nation on another lead to an immediate response. No, his words are intended for the media echo chamber, where they will bounce around in the midst of all the other mind-obliterating noise, with a few key scraps falling into the mix: "Iran" -- "killing Americans" -- "Qods" -- "Iran" -- "killing Americans" -- "Qods." That's all they want -- and that's all they need -- to get across. They certainly don't want anyone to pay close attention to the details of the patter they're putting out. They just want a few keywords to filter into the battered public consciousness, because these are the elements they will invoke when the time comes to launch their own unprovoked military agression against Iran: "Iran's Qods Force is killing Americans, and we must, reluctantly, retaliate. Therefore, tonight I have ordered a series of air raids on Qods Force bases in Iran...."

And hey: "Qods" sounds a lot like "al Qaeda," doesn't it? That gives you extra traction in the echo chamber -- more bang for the propaganda buck.

Let's be clear about this. This is an administration that claims the right to go to war on the merest suspicion that some evil foreign entity might attack Americans at some time in some way. This is an administration that has already acted on this deranged -- but oh-so-war-profitable -- "national defense strategy." This is an administration that specifically named Iran as a dire threat to the nation in the most recent version of this official strategy.

And now, we have Petraeus' j'accuse -- the culmination of more than a year of statements by U.S. officials accusing Iran of direct involvement in attacking and killing American personnel in Iraq. By the morally demented but consistent "principles" enunciated and acted upon by the Bush Administration (principles which of course include the use of manufactured evidence and knowing deception to launch wars in the name of "national security"), the White House has already established an iron-clad case for attacking Iran. Indeed, by their own lights, they have actually been criminally negligent and weak-kneed for not having attacked Iran long ago -- as the most vociferous wingnuts and con-jobs out there keep insisting.

As we said last week, the groundwork for the attack has already been laid. When and if a strike comes, it will almost certainly come quickly, without warning. There will be no new major PR campaign, just a "surge" in the same "mind-obliterating noise" of lies and accusations that has barraged us for so long. And no doubt we will see the redoubtable Petraeus take the lead in this surge against the American people -- with the same slickness and vigor with which he has perpetrated the murderous ethnic cleansing of Baghdad -- when he comes to Congress for another tongue-bath next month.

Note: Petraeus has been an eager dissembler for L'il Boots since the beginning, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in this remarkable compendium of spin, waffle and flim-flam. For more on the saint's progress on the road to glory see: The Imperator Reports: Let the Blood Flow On; Killers and Extremists in the Pay of Petraeus; and Shotgun Wedding: The Saint, the Insurgents, and the Surge's "Success."

Plus: Winter Patriot tells us of another success story of the "humanitarian intervention" in Iraq: Fallujah.

Visions Of The Surge

Like everything else in life, how you see the Surge depends on where you stand.

Thomas Lifson, editor and publisher of the euphemistically named "American Thinker", encapsulates the "conservative" view at the equally euphemistic "Real Clear Politics", in a piece called "The Winter of Conservative Discontent", where Lifson writes:

Iraq was a horrendous disaster, and then it just vanished from consideration as the Surge turned things around.

Lifson's analysis suffers from one weakness only. It doesn't take into account the possibility that the government may be lying.

The "good news" from Iraq certainly seems fabricated to me, and whether it's legitimate or not, it's still insultingly trivial.

Iraq vanished from the headlines because the "liberal" media failed to carry all the good news in banner type, but also because the "liberal" media failed to pursue the obvious story lines, including but not limited to: What are we doing to Iraq? and Why? and What is the depleted uranium doing to our soldiers? and What is it doing to the Iraqi people? and What will it do to life on Earth?

But all these questions are always omitted from the "conservative" "frame" of Iraq, so Thomas Lifson might almost seem to make a little bit of sense -- if you're as dumb as a stick.

The "Good News" From Iraq

What good news is there from Iraq? Sectarian violence is down?

Down from what? Horrendous levels, of course. And how far down? Not all that far, actually. Can other factors account for the downward trends? Sure, they can. Let's start with the redefinition of sectarian violence: Do we have a problem with car bombs? Just stop counting them. Do we want to decrease sectarian violence? No trouble. We can just change the way we classify different types of "injuries".

What other good news is there from Iraq? Casualty rates are down?

Let's talk about how an occupying force can reduce its casualties by changing tactics: If you keep your patrolling to a minimum and bomb the smithereens out of residential areas in the middle of the night, you can cut your losses drastically. And that's what the Americans seem to have done.

But all of this is way outside the frame at "Real Clear Politics", just as it is at "American Thinker", and at every other place where dunderheads gather to slurp Kool-Aid.

The situation elsewhere is a different.

Over at the Washington Independent, Spencer Ackerman remembers when the surge was about something more than short-term reduction in mortality rates. In "Security Gains From 'Surge' Backsliding: New Iraq Security Statistics Show Uptick in Explosions", he writes:

It was the crescendo of an otherwise flat State of the Union address. "Ladies and Gentlemen," President George W. Bush declared Monday night, "some may deny the surge is working, but among terrorists there is no doubt." Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), The Hill reported, rose in applause.

Bush’s speech was one of the more restrained descriptions of the surge—last year’s decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq. In recent weeks, politicians and commentators have moved beyond saying the surge is working to the blunter declaration that the surge "worked," full-stop. Bill Kristol, declaring Gen. David Petraeus his Man of the Year, wrote in a Weekly Standard editorial, "We are now winning the war. " In his New York Times column, Kristol challenged the Democratic candidates to "say the surge worked." On Jan. 10, the first anniversary of the surge, the GOP presidential front-runner, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), co-wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined, flatly, "The Surge Worked."

It used to be that surge enthusiasts would at least hint at the unachieved strategic objective of the surge. As Bush himself put it, the surge was meant to provide the Iraqi government "the breathing space it needs to make progress" on sectarian reconciliation. But reconciliation hasn’t happened, and, in important respects, sectarianism has deepened over the past year. So surgeniks are now simply declaring victory by the sheer fact of reduced violence itself, unmoored to any strategic goal.

Ackerman goes on to note rising casualty rates and concludes that the surge has failed on two counts: the "reconciliation" hasn't happened, and the violence is getting worse again. Ackerman therefore concludes that the Surge has failed.

Who's right? Neither of them, in my view.

The Flaw In The Analyses

Ackerman's analysis suffers from the same flaw that clobbered Lifson's: gullibility. Lifson buys every bit of propaganda ever produced, apparently; and Ackerman doesn't fare quite so poorly. But Ackerman judges the Surge by the standards set for it by its proponents, who may possibly have been pulling wool over somebody's eyes.

By any sane and rational analysis, the "justification" Bush advanced for the Surge was -- if not a flat-out lie -- extremely disingenuous.

Whenever somebody says "I'm going to make this unpopular move in order to allow other people to do what I want them to do," red flags should go up everywhere. This is a "booby-trapped test", so to speak, akin to the old "Heads I win, Tails you lose" con-game.

If Iraq had made progress toward the so-called "reconciliation", Bush could have taken the credit. But now no progress has been made, so Bush and his bootlickers can blame the Iraqis -- and they do!

Why is this so hard to see?

Over at Kiko's House, Shaun Mullen makes the same kind of mistakes as Spencer Ackerman, but he rides the train of thought even further:

An Iraq War Roundup: The Surge ‘Window’ Begins to Close & Other Forever War News

You don’t have to be a bloody genius to know that sooner or later the window of opportunity for Iraqi national reconciliation and a lasting reduction in sectarian violence as a result of the successes of the Surge would begin to close unless there was progress on the part of the Baghdad government.

Well, boys and girls, it would appear that the window is indeed beginning to close since there has been no progress whatsoever except for a totally bogus un-de-Baathification law passed earlier this month.[...]

[Y]ou’d hardly know that nearly two thirds of Americans want the U.S. to get the hell out of Iraq, according to one recent poll.

But alas, that’s not going to happen because the Al-Maliki government has no incentive to take advantage of the opening the Surge has given it because President Bush has given something far more important to [him] and his Shiite cronies — coup insurance in the form of a long-term troop presence. This is the status quo for the foreseeable future. There is no post-Surge strategy, let alone an endgame, because in the Bush Universe politics yet again trump policy.

Is this clear or am I hallucinating? As I read it, Mullen believes the US won't be leaving Iraq "because the Al-Maliki government has no incentive" to proceed with the "reconciliation". And that Bush has no strategy for anything approximating a withdrawal because "politics trump policy".

Nonsense

It's nonsense, of course. There can be no reconciliation in the midst of a civil war, least of all in a country occupied by foreign troops. That's doubly true when the people screaming loudest for reconciliation are the occupying foreigners, and you can redouble if the same people started the civil war.

Unless I'm confusing a bundle of very clear signals, the US won't be leaving for Iraq for the same reason the US invaded Iraq in the first place: the oil. And there is no post-Surge strategy for the same reason there was never any exit strategy of any kind: we never intended to leave -- and we still don't!

None of this ever seems to dawn on Cernig, who picks up the ball from Mullen and runs even farther with it, at Larisa Alexandrovna's blog, At-Largely:

Beware Of Closing Doors

Think-tank types - and not just those on the Left - are beginning to write that the window of opportunity the Surge was intended to force open is now closing. But if the window for the Iraqi government to firmly grasp reconciliation is closing then so is the US' chance to head for the exit while on a Surge of favorable news. [...]

It doesn't matter how many military battles the US wins - it will lose in the long run if AQ [al Qaeda] can simply help keep Iraq unstable. The political dynamic in Iraq means AQ can claim victory just by surviving but the Bush administration (and [its] supporters) are deliberately myopic about Iraq's [internecine] mess simply because it holds little hope of good news, let alone victory. [...]

So the US finds itself in a no-win situation. To withdraw now would seem to invite either a civil war or the ascendancy of nationalists from both Sunni and Shiite sides who would be no use at all in forming a bastion of pro-American power in the Middle East. Yet to remain to try prevent this [occurring] will only put off the inevitable while bloodying American hands [...] Bush has punted the whole issue, leaving it for the next president -- or perhaps even the one after that -- to tell the US public the bad news. That the US should have gotten out while the getting was comparatively good.

It's almost pointless to comment on this; we lost touch with reality several spins back.

Lost: The Essential Point

The essential point, it seems to me, is lost in virtually all the war coverage, on both sides of "the debate", which increasingly seems to bear no relationship to reality whatsoever.

Scott Ritter gets close to this point in his recent essay for TruthDig, "Iraq’s Tragic Future":

The continued ambivalence of the American population as a whole toward the war in Iraq, perhaps best manifested by the superficiality of the slogan “Support the Troops,” all the while remaining ignorant of what the troops are actually doing...

But Ritter himself gives no hint of the ingredient that is always missing from the story.

What The Troops Are Actually Doing

The Pentagon has clamped down so severely on news from occupied Iraq that we're forced to rely on very unofficial sources. And the news we receive in this way may have traveled through informal channels. But it's all we've got.

Late last month, Layla Anwar, author of Arab Woman Blues, spoke at length with her Uncle Abu Nabil, who had "just arrived from Baghdad, via Erbil" and who "had much to tell".

A summary of that conversation served as the centerpiece of a post called "Bits & Pieces from the Iraqi Coffin", from which I quote extensively here. (I have added space, corrected typos, and snipped a great deal. I've also added to the headings.)

Abu Nabil is not a Baathist, but is a retired judge and has very good contacts and inside information. He is half Sunni/half Shia. He has family in Basra, Baghdad and Erbil.

We talked for hours and he had a lot to tell me. [...] I would like you to read it CAREFULLY, SLOWLY and THINK! [...]

Basra (Southern Iraq) -- "Pictures Of Turbaned Snakes Everywhere"

- Most official and non-official buildings have inscriptions in Farsi/Persian. They have been renamed in Persian.

- Farsi is spoken in Basra, alongside Arabic.

- Monetary dealings can be done in either Tooman (Iranian currency) or Iraqi dinars. That means when you buy something you can pay in both currencies.

- The pictures of Khomeini, Ahmadinejad, Al Hakeem, Muqtada Al-Sadr [photo] are everywhere. When you think that critiques of President Saddam Hussein accused him of imposing the personality cult and you see these pictures of turbaned snakes everywhere... Makes you wonder, does it not?

- The Iranian and sectarian militias have infiltrated the highest echelons of police, army, government officials. Any criticism means death.

- ALL women are forced to veil. And the number of women murdered by those militias is much higher than the official figure given (153).

- People FEAR speaking out against all the human rights abuses that are taking place in Basra, for they run the risk of disappearing in no time.

- Corruption is endemic.

- Kuwaitis are often seen in Basra and have numerous business deals with the Iranians there.

- Drugs and arms are the main bread and butter of the sectarian militias.

- Basra is now unofficially considered a state of its own.

Erbil (Northern Iraq) -- "Iraqis Have Been Imprisoned For Waving The Iraqi Flag"

- Masoud Barazani, the Kurdish, Mossad/CIA agent, crook, embezzler, thug, arm dealer, insists on changing the Iraqi flag.

- Several Iraqis have been imprisoned for waving the Iraqi flag in “Kurdistan.”

- [Masoud Barazani] and his family have monopoly over all businesses and contracts to the annoyance of the Kurdish population.[...]

- Many Kurds do not approve of what is happening but are AFRAID to voice their discontent.

- The statues of Masoud Barazani and his father are found on every street corner. So are his pictures and that of his father. And the Kurds, along with sectarian Shias, criticized President Saddam Hussein for having portraits.

- The majority of the Kurdish population is impoverished and does not have access to decent medical care.

- Honor killings against women in the Kurdish villages are very common.

- Both Masood Barazani and Jalal Talabani (the so-called current president of Iraq) are dealing in Iraqi oil through dubious contracts, exporting it and cashing in the profits - just like their corrupt Shia counterparts.

Baghdad (Central Iraq) -- "Concrete Blocks, Checkpoints, Barbed Wires, Walls EVERYWHERE"

- Baghdad in the past 6 months has changed even more. The road from the Airport to central Baghdad is unrecognizable.

- There are concrete blocks, checkpoints, barbed wires, walls EVERYWHERE. Authorizations from BOTH the militias and the American forces are demanded to move from one neighborhood to another.

- The streets have become garbage containers. The garbage has reached the sky.

- There is a terrible shortage of electricity, water, and fuel.

- Inflation is over 110%.

- The health system is in shambles. Doctors cannot be found. Some have sought refuge in Erbil and most have escaped outside the country.

- It is common knowledge in Baghdad that those who murdered the scientists, academics and doctors were the IRANIAN Quds brigades and paid AMERICAN death contractors including the MOSSAD.

"Al-Qaeda Is Financed By BOTH America And Iran"

- It is common knowledge in Baghdad, that Al-Qaeda is financed by BOTH America and Iran.

- Rape is common. Many women are raped by militias, police and armed forces but they DARE NOT report it.

- Women are forced to take up the veil, including the few left Christian Baghdadis, even young school girls are veiled out of FEAR.

- Orphaned children live in the streets. American troops throw a few candies their way, high above, from their humvees, as if feeding animals. [...]

- One finds so many drug addicts and drugs dealers in Baghdad (something unheard of during our “dictatorship”)

- Many people DARE NOT send their children to school for security reasons. Also schools are frequent targets for both the sectarian militias and the American occupation forces.

"What Were Mixed Neighborhoods Are Totally Ethnically Cleansed"

- What were mixed neighborhoods are totally ethnically cleansed [and] are now Shia only neighborhoods.

- A lot of the true Iraqi Shias are AFRAID to speak out against the sectarian militias.

- In Sunni neighborhoods, you find on a regular basis, the IRANIAN Quds Brigades harassing the people, burning down Sunnis mosques, insulting and slandering. In one Sunni neighborhood, one week ago, they caught 4 Iranians cursing and slandering the Sunnis and the Americans were there and did nothing.

- You will see in most neighborhoods, including Sunni ones, pictures and portraits of Muqtada al Sadr, Abdel Azeez Al-Hakeem and other turbaned mullahs, with black or green flags waving. The Badr Brigades posters include the following remarks: “District no. 1, 2, 3… Islamic Revolutionary Council of Iraq/Iranian Quds Brigades.” They control every district.

- Hadi Al-Amiri, military head of the armed Badr Brigades is known to be a notorious killer. Even Bremer said so in his memoirs. He [...] arrived on American tanks from Iran.

- Muqtada Al-Sadr so-called freeze on all “activities” are due to a fall out with Al-Hakeem head of SCII and Badr Brigades. This latter promised him and his Jaysh Al-Mahdi chunks of the bounty, if he agreed to ethnically cleanse Sunnis.

The SCII and Badr Brigades did not deliver, that is why Muqtada Al-Sadr and his Jaysh Al-Mahdi s decided to supposedly stop their sectarian cleansing until further notice.

- The Sawha or Awakening Councils are another American ploy to contain the Resistance. After being massacred by both the Iranian sectarian shias and Al-Qaeda, Sunnis and the Resistance have realized that both Al-Qaeda and the Shia sectarian militias were working for the Americans and the Iranians.

- People are AFRAID to speak out, they can easily be abducted, disappear, get imprisoned, or get killed by the militias, the police or the armed forces both American and Iraqi.

"Everyone Hates The Americans." ... "We Are Prisoners In Our homes."

- Everyone hates the Americans. They shoot anyone standing in their way, physically eliminate them. When they drive around, if you don’t stop and stand aside, they shoot you. As simple as that.

- The Americans are aware of what Iran and its militias are doing in Baghdad. They are also aware of the sectarian nature of the Government, but they don’t seem to mind. As long as their presence is secured, that is all they care about.

- We are prisoners in our homes. No one dares go out, no one dares do anything. It is unbearable. You never know when a bullet or a mortar will fall on your head.

- Iraq is in bits and pieces. I don’t when and who will be put together again.

The above is what Uncle Abu Nabil said word for word. I knew all of that anyway but he just confirmed it to me. But what he was trying to tell me is that the situation is getting worse. And that Iraq and Baghdad in particular have dramatically changed.
...

We ended our conversation with a question he posed and I hope you will take time to ponder and answer it yourselves.

He said “I really don’t understand why people are defending Iran against an American attack. Iran is in the heart of occupied Baghdad. The Americans we will eventually drive away, but Iran is a neighbor, It will be more difficult to get rid of that one. Why did the Americans hand Iraq to the Iranians? This I don’t understand. Must have been an agreement between both.”

Thomas Lifson was right, of course. And so was John McCain. The Surge Worked.

It drove another dagger into the heart of Iraq. It shut down media criticism of the war. It put us one step closer to all that oil. And it made sure everybody in Iraq will hate us -- forever.

So now we can never leave.

It's astonishing how ungrateful the Iraqis are after all we have done for them. We've even inspired their children to create innovative art.