Train Wrecks

Warning: this is a political rant, because I’m pissed off.

Four hundred dead in Iraq within 48 hours and 15 British sailors and marines captured in Iraqi waters by Iranian gunships does not make for a happy Middle East.

Both issues have significant ramifications, both short and long term.

The first issue is criminal. No, it’s despicable, reprehensible, anathema to humankind, no matter what flavour and criminal.

Some would see it as tragic that so many people were killed by suicide bombers. I take the American view that these ‘soldiers for Islam’ are, in fact, homicide bombers.

It’s bad enough to blow up a car filled with explosives to kill innocent Iraqis because they’re Shi’ite or Sunni. It’s sickening that Chlorine gas was used. It’s loathsome that children were used in at least two bombings and an ambulance used in another.

Yeah, one ‘soldier for Islam’ had two kids in the back seat of a car filled with explosives so he could drive by a check point. Why would anyone suspect a man would be so willing to sacrifice a child for his own twisted cause?

In a second bombing, a twelve-year-old boy on a bicycle with explosives was used. Again, who would suspect someone so young?

The fundamentalist explanation is that these victims are ‘martyrs for the cause and will go to heaven for their reward; their sins – and those of their family - will be forgiven’. That goes for any innocent killed, too. Such specious reasoning is atypical of a patriarchal religion determined to oppress everyone but themselves and their friends; to maintain their grip on power. It has nothing to do with Mohammad or his religion, and everything to do with greed.

What they’re not telling these bombers is that they’re not going to heaven; there’s a special place reserved in Hell for them, because Islam forbids such killings; only a council of Imams can call a Jihad, and only to protect the Holy land.

The second issue is more political. It’s to do with Iran boosting its political currency with other Middle East countries. It matters not that they are condemned by the United Nations, NATO and the European Union, or that the Brits can prove via GPS that HMS Cornwall was in Iraqi waters; it matters that they have taken on a military powerhouse and humiliated them, thus giving them kudos in the eyes of more radical Moslems and countries who are afraid of the might of the West. It tells these people that there are ways because the West is unwilling to sacrifice its’ own people; where radical Moslems have no such fear.

As the standoff continues, or should I say propaganda war, the US announced it has refused a prisoner exchange of the five Iranian spies captured in Irbil for the 15 Brits; the Iranian.

All this comes down to Iran having bargaining chips for the negotiations on the nuclear issue, a fact already stated by an Iranian official, in that Britain’s demand for the prisoners to be released without delay was ‘unhelpful to the negotiations’.

Iran has its’ eye on becoming the premier power in the Middle East. (I haven’t heard any condemnation from any other country in the region.)

If Iran fulfils the UN’s accusations of nuclear armament, what then? Will President Ahmadinejad follow through on his threat to wipe Israel out? His country is already building cheap Cruise missiles; Iran supports Hezbollah fighters in Israel. Iranian made weaponry has been found in Iraq, Iranian agents captured in Iraq, Iran is an ally of Syria and Palestine.

Does any of this sound suspicious? What endgame is coming up?

Worse, Democrat Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, thinks it’s a good idea to visit Syria, a known ally of Iran. What is she going to say? “Don’t worry: we’ll be out of here in a year.” Or more telling, “We’re reasonable people, we can come up with a reasonable solution.” That only works if you’re engaging people of a like mind.

What it shows is a significant lack of geo-political awareness of Middle East politics.

Bush may have made a mistake going into Iraq to finish the job the UN wouldn’t let his father complete, but the rhetoric and arm-twisting in the Congress (‘Calm down’, indeed), and the emasculating of the American forces in Iraq will lead to defeat; not just militarily, but diplomatically and politically.

Neither of these situations bode well – not for the people involved, nor for the rest of us watching the train wrecks coming. Sure as eggs, these situations are going to deteriorate. It’s time to stop being politically correct, and take action, because no matter what any one says, someone is going to be offended. There is no respect in ‘talking about it’, because the other side sees that as a weakness to exploit and, as history has allegedly taught us, appeasement never works.