The Arab Spring, about which President Obama has spoken glowingly, has gone through the summer and fall with what appears to be disastrous results for Egypt, with the jury out regarding Tunisia. The other uprisings, such as in Yemen, are yet to be judged but one thing seems clear enough, to wit, that Sharia Law will come to the fore as its proponents subdue less sanguinary opponents. The Muslim Brotherhood and the disparate elements of al Qaeda will prevail, not least because the deaths of women and children are simply incidental to strategy requiring that terrorism be the weapon of choice.
A new Arab Spring is likely to take place in Iraq in 2012, not long after the U.S. military presence is nullified, with only a hugely bloated American embassy staff in place, as well as a virtual army of U.S. contractors, who will continue to throw away the hard-earned cash confiscated through taxes from U.S. citizens, at least that part which is not squirreled away by the chief pooh-bahs of the Iraqi government. Governments change…people do not.
Iraq is 60% Shi’ite and Iran is totally Shi’ite, thus this overwhelming match-up of militant religionists will cause blood in the streets. Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shi’ite cleric of some sort at the time, raised his own army after the 2003 invasion by the U.S. and the coalition and waged his own bloody, well-documented war, finally easing off and, according to Jihad Watch, April 2008, departed for theological study in Qom, Iran. He will be a main player in Iraq, perhaps rising to the office of Iraqi Ayatollah, in which case the Iran/Iraq axis will be united and violently opposed to the U.S. and will dominate the Middle East, while at the same time managing huge reservoirs of oil.
The greatly outnumbered Kurds in the Iraqi North, also in the proximity of large oil reserves, likely will not stand to be governed by the Shi’ites in the South, and the Sunnis – Saddam’s gang – will be under the gun big-time as revenge works its way through the system. The memories don’t even have to be long with regard to the 400,000 or so Iraqis killed by the butcher of Baghdad, beginning only some 30 or so years ago.
Civil War is a distinct possibility, if not a probability, and Obama, who seems to fancy himself a golden-voiced diplomat of sorts, as well as whoever succeeds him, will have little influence. Muslims have no qualms about killing each other, but then neither did Americans 1861-65. The difference: both the cause (unity) and the method, warring armies, not terrorism. Muslims, strangely, fight and kill over religious issues. Al-Sadr’s father, an ayatollah, was supposedly killed by Saddam, so revenge is in order.
For his part, Obama contributed to the Arab Spring by invading Libya in March, unprovoked but causing significant death and devastation to that benighted country, already beleaguered by Qaddafi. When he speaks of the military dead vis-à-vis Iraq, he speaks hypocritically. At least the Americans were fighting as an armed force for a cause that received the imprimatur and active support of other nations such as Britain. Obama seems to have acted on either a whim or to prove something.
Obama may have caused as many or more deaths, mostly civilians including women and children, and did it by executive order with no approach to or permission from the Congress. He made sure no American boot touched the ground, thus foreclosing any official report concerning his disgraceful action. Such arrogance and lawlessness are intolerable. In the process, he configured the assassination of a head of state.
Now, State Secretary Clinton is belaboring the Syrian uprising. She has met with something called the Syrian National Council and Obama has called for Syrian President Assad to step down, just as he did vis-à-vis Mubarak in Egypt and Qaddafi in Libya. Both of the latter countries are in a state of chaos. After apologizing to the world for this country, Obama has now become the ugly American, earning distrust throughout the Middle East.
Though he had no vote regarding the Iraqi action since he wasn’t in the Senate in 2003, Obama has boasted of his disapproval of that action; yet, without a by-your-leave from the American people through their representatives, he attacked Libya, population 2 million less than that of New York City. One wonders if he intends to lead NATO from behind again in an attack to wipe Syrian planes from the sky and arm the Syrian National Council. The president is a loose cannon but American citizens are not ready for another war with a country that is no danger to it or the rest of the world.
It’s no wonder the latest polls indicate that about 79% of Americans think the country is headed the wrong way, disapprove strongly of the administration and Congress, and have lost hope. God help the United States in 2012!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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