Six Years in Iraq

....and this is the NY Times' tag line for the Weekend Magazine.

Six years of war have left Iraq a democracy and Iran the regional power.

Why waste time reading the article? Both statements will be false in 3 to 4 years.

First, take the statement "Iraq a democracy". Okay Iraq did have a "peaceful" democratic election last week. A democratic Iraq became the Bush Administration's objective of the War (after finding no WMD and finding no links between 9-11, Al-Qaeda and Iraq). So is Iraq a "democracy"? I think not.

Inevitably, Iraq will become like Lebanon and Palestine. The U.S. highly suggested (told) Lebanon and Palestine (because of their proximity to Israel) to pursue democratic governments, in order to get U.S. aid. Both countries said fine. They went through the motions of having a democratic elections and elected Hezbollah (in Lebanon) and Hamas (in Palestine), terrorist groups (per the U.S government) into political office. Then U.S. government then returns and says wo-wo that's NOT the kind a democracies we were talking about. You MUST establish "democratic" governments, but you also must ELECT the people we WANT you to elect to positions of political power.

This undoubtedly will also happen in Iraq. The "insurgents" will put down their guns and start running for political office. And the people of Iraq will elect them to power, because they hate what America has done to their country. This will be Bush's "democracy".

As for "Iran the regional power", the only reason they are presently a regional power is their country's cash reserves have sky rocketed along with the price of oil over the past couple of years. They have huge cash reserves. With oil prices back down to below $50 a barrel, they will only be a regional power until they deplete their cash reserves. The country has virtually no underlying economy. Once the cash reserves are gone, with $50 a barrel prices it should only take a couple of years, then a new centralist government will be installed.

While I haven't read the NY Times article (it would be a waste of time), because while the tag line might be true today, in 3 to 4 years it will not be.