Agorism
01-17-2011, 01:06 PM
http://antiwar.com/radio/2011/01/16/patrick-cockburn-19/
Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, discusses how Muqtada al-Sadr’s return to Iraq has changed the political landscape and made a full US withdrawal by year’s end more likely; how otherwise-nationalist Iraqis use foreign allies as leverage against domestic sectarian/religious rivals; why the Pentagon seems to have drunk its own surge narrative Kool-Aid (in expecting the Iraq occupation to continue indefinitely); why the April Glaspie memo can’t be construed as a green light for invasion, because nobody expected Saddam Hussein to do it; how George H.W. Bush’s failure to support the 1991 Shiite uprising showed a US preference for an enduring, but weakened, Hussein led government, and an understanding that a Shia win would benefit Iran; how plain “stupidity” explains George W. Bush’s policy shift to depose Hussein and occupy the country; and how Iraq’s crippling problems are reflected by the millions of refugees who still refuse to return home.
MP3 here. (28:51)
Patrick Cockburn was awarded the 2009 Orwell Prize for political writing in British journalism. He is the Middle East correspondent for The Independent and a frequent contributor to CounterPunch.org. Cockburn is the author of The Occupation: War, Resistance and Daily Life in Iraq and Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq.
Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, discusses how Muqtada al-Sadr’s return to Iraq has changed the political landscape and made a full US withdrawal by year’s end more likely; how otherwise-nationalist Iraqis use foreign allies as leverage against domestic sectarian/religious rivals; why the Pentagon seems to have drunk its own surge narrative Kool-Aid (in expecting the Iraq occupation to continue indefinitely); why the April Glaspie memo can’t be construed as a green light for invasion, because nobody expected Saddam Hussein to do it; how George H.W. Bush’s failure to support the 1991 Shiite uprising showed a US preference for an enduring, but weakened, Hussein led government, and an understanding that a Shia win would benefit Iran; how plain “stupidity” explains George W. Bush’s policy shift to depose Hussein and occupy the country; and how Iraq’s crippling problems are reflected by the millions of refugees who still refuse to return home.
MP3 here. (28:51)
Patrick Cockburn was awarded the 2009 Orwell Prize for political writing in British journalism. He is the Middle East correspondent for The Independent and a frequent contributor to CounterPunch.org. Cockburn is the author of The Occupation: War, Resistance and Daily Life in Iraq and Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq.