Nikkos: "Why Sy Hersh is Wrong (just this once)"



Spot The Arab (by their style of doorway)



Thanks to NIKKOS who contributed this great piece on Sy Hersh - THANKS NIKKOS!





Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker is as terrifying as usual. Among

other things, it posits a shift (the "redirection" of the article's title)

in the Bush administrations' strategy in the Middle East, specifically, an

explicit decision to support Sunnis rather than Shia. If true, this would

represent a stunning reversal in alliances, considering it was the

virulently Sunni Al Qaeda that attacked the U.S. on 9/11 and that the U.S.

is currently fighting a counter-insurgency war against Sunnis in support of

the Shia Maliki government in Iraq. However, for anyone that's been watching

the unfolding disaster which is the Bush administration, these sorts of

vertigo-inducing paradoxes are par for the course.



As usual, it's hard to tell if these are acts of stupidity, strategy or

desperation. The mind reels and grasps for a "logical" explanation, a

narrative which can impose some semblance of order upon the chaos which Bush

and his cronies seem to foment everywhere they traipse. And it is here where

I think Hersh- or more accurately and fairly, his sources- get it wrong.

They get it wrong because they seek to make to make sense out of what the

Bush administration is doing, when there is, literally, no sense to be made

of the situation. Or, to use a favorite phrase of the President, "in other

words," what's going on here is not a rational re-alignment of alliances and

interests in the pursuit of some rational goal- democracy, peace and

stability in the Middle East, for instance. Rather, as has been amply

documented, the Bush administration believes in "constructive chaos" in the

Middle East; that is, the belief that, phoenix-like, a modern Middle East

can emerge only from the flames of destruction. Therefore, conflict is to be

embraced, not feared, for it is only through conflict that the Middle East

can be reborn (though there may be some "pangs," as Condi pointed out).



When viewed in this context, then, Hersh's reporting makes more sense: it's

not that we are switching sides; we're merely making sure both sides are

properly armed and that as a whole, the region is left perpetually

off-balance and unable to respond with any unity to the increasing hegemony

of the United States. The increased tempo of this destabilization may in

fact be part and parcel of an impending military strike against Iran- what

better way to blunt a unified Middle Eastern response than to make sure the

locals are busy fighting each other? Heck, it's just like in the good ol'

days when we armed Saddam on the one hand and clandestinely armed the

Iranians on the other. (Interestingly enough, Iran-Contra is back in the

news, with reports that Negroponte stepped down from DNI in order to go to

State precisely to avoid another Iran-Contra-like debacle which he saw

brewing.)



So, yes, it IS a redirection- but not the kind Sy Hersh's sources envision.



- posted by Nikkos Labels: Bush Iraq, Hersh, Negroponte, Shia, sunni



