It’s déjà vu all over again, as baseball great, Yogi Berra, used to say.
2002: The George W. Bush administration requested Afghanistan to surrender Osama bin Laden so that he might stand trial for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States. The Taliban-dominated government in Kabul responded with a request of its own: Provide us the evidence that bin Laden actually was responsible for those attacks, and we will gladly hand him over.
Bush the Younger did not have any evidence to provide, because there wasn’t any, not one shred. Instead, Bush warmed up his propaganda machine and convinced America that “revenge” was due and that the only way to get it was to invade Afghanistan. The Taliban was overthrown, sent packing, and replaced by a puppet government. The U.S. has been there for 18 years and, propping up one corrupt government after another, thanks to a resurgent Taliban.
2003: The George W. Bush administration received co-called intelligence that Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, whom we used to call friend, possessed weapons of mass destruction and therefore was a menace to all of Southwest Asia. Consequently, Iraq was invaded (for the second time!), and Saddam fled Baghdad and went into hiding. It was later learned that the intelligence was fake news. Nevertheless, America found itself in the middle of a religious civil war between the majority Shi’ite Muslims and the minority Sunni Muslims and took the side of the majority.
The Sunni rebels were eventually subsumed by an even more extreme Sunni organization, ISIS, which was determined to return all of Southwest Asia to those halcyon days of the 13th Century. The U.S. has marked its 16th year in Iraq with no end in sight.
Both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein since have received their just rewards, the former assassinated by U.S. Navy SEALS, the latter hanged by vengeful Shi’ites.
Do you see where this going, dear reader?
Déjà vu all over again.
The “Iranian problem” dates back to 1979 with the Islamic Revolution fostered by the Ayatollah Khomeini. America’s ally, Shah Pahlavi, was overthrown and forced to leave the country; he sought and found refuge in the U.S.. The new government in Tehran requested his return so that he might answer for his crimes against the Iranian people. The U.S. refused to give him up. In retaliation, a group of Iranian students, which included a future president, invaded the U.S. Embassy and took 52 staff members hostage. U.S. president Jimmy Carter attempted a rescue operation, but it failed miserably; Carter was forced to cut a humiliating deal with the Ayatollah in exchange for the release of the hostages. This debacle has stuck in the craw of official Washington, and Iran has been cast as a pariah state ever since.
Although it is true that Tehran has spent the last 40 years building up its military might and peddling its influence throughout the region, it has done everything that the United States of America has done since the close of World War II for as many of the same reasons. The Chas is no big fan of theocracies, but he hates hypocrisy even more.
President Donald Trump accused the late Qud Force commander, Major General Qassim Soleimani, of plotting the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Southwest Asia, who shouldn’t have been there in the first place, I hasten to add, as the reason for calling for the man’s assassination. No evidence was provided to back this claim; we simply had to take his word for it. This president has had the nasty habit of making wild claims without backing them up with a few facts. Of course, he’s not the only one to do so where Iran was concerned, but none of his predecessors ever has contemplated assassination as a viable alternative to diplomacy.
The irony here is that Iran’s economy had been on the brink for some time, thanks to American sanctions. Massive demonstrations in Iran against the government over unemployment, rising fuel costs, and corrupt politicians had taken place in recent days and put down brutally. Even the vaunted supreme leader, Ayatollah Khameini, had not escaped criticism. Trump’s rash decision served to unite all Iranians in an outpouring of rage and cries for revenge.
What happens next is anybody’s guess, but the U.S. does not need to be involved in another war in Southwest Asia. Our good will already has been shot to pieces. What is needed is a withdrawal of all of our troops and a reliance solely on diplomacy.
Just a thought.