Solution to Iraq Quagmire Is Peace With Iran, Says Ex-Colin Powell Adviser

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/world/solution-iraq-quagmire-peace-iran-says-ex-colin-powell-adviser

When it looked as if the long and bloody war Hussein had started might eventually destroy the balance we sought and draw the Soviets into Gulf waters, the U.S. openly took Iraq’s side. We re-flagged and escorted Kuwaiti tankers, a U.S. warship absorbed two Iraqi Exocet missiles and almost sank , another of our warships struck an Iranian mine, we attacked Iran’s command-and-control assets, sunk one Iranian warship and badly damaged another, and then tragically shot down an Iranian civilian airliner with 290 people on board. It was this tragic act that many believe caused Ayatollah Khomeini to “ drink the hemlock ,” as he put it, and declare an end to the disastrous war Iraq had begun. The stability we sought was reestablished.

At the end of the 1980s, I became a special adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Having been thwarted in his attempt to conquer Iran, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and we immediately launched Operation Desert Shield to protect Saudi oil facilities and, some months later, Operation Desert Storm to kick the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait.

Desert Storm accomplished our strategic objective: restoring the balance in the Gulf. We did not march to Baghdad to unseat Saddam Hussein, because had we done so alone, we would have assumed the role of balancer and would have had to remain in that country indefinitely, something we wisely judged as not only untenable but extremely dangerous for long-term U.S. interests.

Through four presidents—Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton—the U.S. played an adroit strategic game in the Persian Gulf. As a member of the Marine Corps War College faculty from 1993-1997, I and my joint-force students studied, analyzed and evaluated this strategy. As a personal adviser to retired General Colin Powell from 1998-2000, I often discussed how Saddam was contained and the Gulf was stable. In short, we watched U.S. strategy work. It maintained stability in one of the most vital regions of the world and cheap oil flowed to Japan, to Europe and to us.

[Old and In the Way]

1. Then Bush/Cheney fucked everything up.

The End.

[Trillo]

2. cheap oil? Not anymore.

It appears U.S. military is now being used to keep gasoline prices high, reference UGA, the financial symbol for U.S. gasoline. MH17, the Gaza invasion, and now the U.S. bombing of ISIS: it is curious to note the gasoline prices and what UGA was doing at those moments. It appears that now we're involved again, gasoline prices have stopped falling. This perspective gives new meaning to Netanyahu's "Little Satan" - "Big Satan" comments to Obama.

Don't believe the psyop in this article, or if you do, read it carefully.