host

Doesn't it seem now that the ass kissing of "troops hatin" Walid Jumblatt and of the boy billionaire, al Hariri, might not have been the best moves that Mr. Bush could have pursued, for the past three years?

This thread has been a study in how not to do it. Why, in god's name, would our president and his secretary of state and yes girl, Condi Rice, think that either courting Jumblatt or corrupt Saudi-ized billionaire al-Hariri a more appealing tactic than what Hezbollah can offer the Lebanese <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006/07/19/world/middleeast/20060719_MIDEAST_GRAPHIC.html">majority</a>?

The farce is that Bush protrays the US as the shi'a "liberator" in iraq, then buys off the sunni leaders in Anbar, while inviting the enemy of US troops and NASA astronauts, Jumblatt, to the white house.

Why would the Lebanese masses be attracted to Jumblatt or to al Hariri and his Saudi fortune? Last time I looked, Saudis are mostly sunni.

None of this was ever thought out before the Iraqi invasion. The "winning" side in Lebanon, now, in Iraq, and in Iran, is shiite. Saddam was a counter, a stabilizing influence. He and his sons were "the solution". There is a vacuum, created by Bush/Cheney and their neocon associates.

The sunnis have the money, but not the numbers. An idiot should have been able to see that the borders in the region were artificial and that removing Saddam would strengthen the shi'a majority throughout the region, and by default, Iran.

If the commitment to "democracy" is anymore than rhetoric, why don't we try withdrawing our troops and put the bulk of the challenge to deal with this mess in the hands of the Saudis? This is a regional problem, and there is no US backed military solution....not while we require 25 percent of the world's entire daily oil production.

This is where our foreign policy situation must separate from Israel's, but AIPAC and other neocons keep perceptions in the US from heading towards any possibility of separate goals and priorities. It will happen though.

The British, in 1920, set up an arrangement in Lebanon and in Iraq that centered on sunni rule. Gertrude Bell was of the opinon that the shi'a were not rational enough to rule Iraq to British standards. Sunni rule can only be accomplished via deception or at the point of a gun.

We're discovering what was known in 1920...the shi'a are a problem. Saddam countered and controlled their ambitions. Now, nobody does. HELLO???????

Bush has put the US in a position where it cannot set up sunni rule in any country because it is viewed as a "Saddam like" arrangement...and it is too complex for the geniuses in the US government to ever pull off....it isn't 1920, anymore.....and the US cannot accept shi'a majority rule in Iraq or shi'a rule in Lebanon, no matter what the majority in either country want or will tolerate, because it is viewed as strenghtening Iran.

So the US gravitated towards Jumblatt and al-Hariri and the two are cowering in safe houses, with no appreciable popular support.....

We can kill hundreds of thousands more, and lose thousands more of our own troops, and interfere with our own oil supply, but it isn't going to change the demographics and politics of the region. We made a huge foreign poliy error in 2003. and now we pay.....unless we decide to kill millions, and then who will we be when we're done? A bunch of Bushes and Cheneys?

God help us!