That’s strike 2 for the mainstream media regarding the Basra issue. God Dammit, when is Iraq going to fall into chaos again!? When are American forces going to finally be defeated?! I’m looking forward to it!

Doomsday scenarios are great to blog about but reality has to come home to roost at some point. The fastest growing 18-30 year old population in the world is Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan – these young people are no more genocidal maniacs then they are here in our country by and large. Mostly they are just kids who want a future….good jobs, decent weed, vacations, coffee with friends, getting laid – normal stuff.

Iran needs Nuclear power to move their economy into the 21st century so that all these young people can have a future – otherwise there will be real problems. As long as we let that idiot Bush and his cabinet frame the Iran issue as one of the “black cleric bent on our destruction” the clowns win – the billionaires win again – the idiots and philistines pull one out once more. Regular people that just want to make it through the day, feed their families, weed their gardens, garden their weed, walk their dogs – are pitted against eachother because we let our leaders make those decisions……..never conscious of the fact they couldn’t care less – they are in those positions for their own enrichment – they’re politicians they hate people like you and me.

if an event like that does happen, Iran as a country no longer exists. They’re gone. We will bomb them back into the stone age.

Do you really believe that? If 20 years from now – when the world has forgotten about Bush – Israel is struck with a WMD attack by terrorists in one of its cities, and Iran condemns the attack, denies responsibility, do you think the world would tolerate a nuclear holocaust wrought upon Iran, and a permanent Israeli occupation from the Nile to Damascus?

Besides, a nuclear-armed Iran has leverage to wage conventional warfare and increase its support for global terror, without the threat of regime change. Saddam actually said, “I should have acquired nuclear weapons before I invaded Kuwait”

We aren’t even talking about the generation of genocidal maniacs who are being raised on suicide-jihad propaganda and apocalyptic end-times eschatology. These kids will inherit the reigns of power when they grow up .

If Iran can be considered such a responsible actor on the nuclear stage, why do you think they are trying to construct a nuclear weapon in the first place?

First, it’s completely unknowable if they’ll be a threat to our homeland security in the future. But we do know what our present policy has created. So it’s just as easy to say that staying in there is the irresponsible path.

Second, Al-Maliki came out of this with egg on his face, and our helping him has emboldened al-Sadr even more to say that al-Maliki is a puppet. So this move appears to have strengthened Iran’s hand in Iraq, not weakened it.

On another note, do we really think Iran is going to develop nuclear weapons, get it to al Qaeda and set it off in America? Or even Israel? For some reason we seem to completely ignore the realities of self preservation and think that an entire country will essentially build their foreign policy upon the logic of what amounts to being a suicide bomber. Iran knows full well that if an event like that does happen, Iran as a country no longer exists. They’re gone. We will bomb them back into the stone age. Does it make ANY sense for them to do that? But even before that happens, we have numerous options to make sure they don’t get the materials to build a bomb.

I’m sorry Alan, but it just doesn’t add up. And I think it’s incredibly irresponsible for our government to continue to waste billions and lives on what amounts to fear-based policy.

If you placed “immediate” in front of “threat” you’d be right. But a distabalized Iraq or an Iraq that is nothing more than an Iranian satellite state will dramatically impact our national security in the long term. I think it’s important to consider those longer range scenarios, otherwise we’ll be just as short-sighted in our withdrawal as we were in our invasion.

“Sadr backed down in the face of the Iraqi army…” – JD

False. Right wing wishful thinking, I’ve seen this nonsense on a number of right wing blogs over the last 24. Here is what actually happened:

The backdrop to Sadr’s dramatic statement was a secret trip Friday by Iraqi lawmakers to Qom, Iran’s holy city and headquarters for the Iranian clergy who run the country.

There the Iraqi lawmakers held talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) brigades of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and signed an agreement with Sadr, which formed the basis of his statement Sunday, members of parliament said.

Ali al Adeeb, a member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s Dawa party, and Hadi al Ameri, the head of the Badr Organization, the military wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, had two aims, lawmakers said: to ask Sadr to stand down his militia and to ask Iranian officials to stop supplying weapons to Shiite militants in Iraq…

The Qom discussions may or may not bring an end to the fighting but they almost certainly have undermined Maliki – who made repeated declarations that there would be no negotiations and that he would treat as outlaws those who did not turn in their weapons for cash. The blow to his own credibility was worsened by the fact that members of his own party had helped organize the Iran initiative. The delegation was from the United Iraqi Alliance (dominated by the Dawa party and the Supreme Council of Iraq), and the Prime Minister was only informed. It was a political maneuver by us,” said Haider al Abadi, a legislator from Maliki’s Dawa party. “We had evidence (that Muqtada and Iranian-backed militants were fighting security forces) and we sent people urgently…If we had been waiting for one year in Baghdad we wouldn’t have had this result.” The delegation is expected to return to Iraq Monday.

Maliki’s Generals worked behind his back to cut a deal with al-Sadr. Maliki is toast. He started as a weak and unpopular leader , now he is weaker and has no constituency left except for George Bush. The only thing that keeps him in office is the American military. And it won’t be al-Sadr he has to watch out for. It is his own staff.

This NYT piece is another “what if” scenario, because the 1st “what if” – Sadr’s brigades being victorious in Basra and American troops drawn into another quagmire – didn’t happen.

If these “what if” scenarios – the ones you point to in order to justify a withdrawal – continue to not happen, does that mean the American troop presence is doing its job and should continue as planned?

Second, You are admitting that Iran, the greatest sponsor of trans-national terrorism, has a stake in this, and is trying to expand their influence in the region through these militias. How is that not related to our national security?