So, apparently the U.S. has done nothing that surprised Steve since 9/11, and so the basic analysis that Lastsuperpower is known for is wrong.  There is no change in direction; no change in policies; and it is all steady as she goes with just minor disagreements between the Tweedledee and Tweedledum ruling-elites.  ;

According to Steve, these elites are not deeply divided over the issue of promoting or opposing the development of bourgeois democracy in the Middle East; and the analysts at Lastsuperpower have got it all wrong and we ought to have opposed the liberation and instead marched behind banners that proclaimed “NO BLOOD FOR OIL” like Steve did.

Steve is: ‘quite proud that I was the first on this site to call for support of the elections called for by Sistani.  If you look back at those arguments a regular contributor described this call for elections as premature.’

Yet the record is that three ‘Sistani approved’ elections have been held and it would be Sophistry to call for them to be supported by ignoring them and the resulting elected representatives.  Yet what do we get from Steve?  Silence is what we get. 

Steve could have and should have written Chomsky-Drowning not waving;

http://www.lastsuperpower.net/disc/members/973483722245  

and while doing so, pointed out how he was the first to call for these elections to be supported; but because those that have been elected call for on-going military assistance from the Coalition Steve does nothing.  

Steve has not publicly broken with those that claim the elections are fraudulent.  Yet they are ‘Sistani approved’ so what is it that Steve actually supports?  We can be sure he does not really support the ‘Sistani approved’ elections. 

In the cold light of day what Steve actually wanted were elections that would generate a government that told the Coalition to ‘go home now’, and he could not work out that he was not going to get such an outcome.  How can he therefone be proud of this ‘support’ for ‘Sistani approved’ elections?  Why call for them and then ignore them completely?

Steve could have and should have written the following type of comment given that he was calling ‘for support of the elections’

A major issue that immediately faces anti-racist activists, world-wide, is what stance to take on the ‘new’ war in Iraq. The ‘old’ war has now ended, so it’s only of historical interest and that’s fine for those who are interested. But anti-racist activists have to address the ‘new’ war to the extent that it has a racial or sectarian underpinning, and it overwhelmingly is so underpinned.

Who the political representatives of the Iraqi masses are has now been conclusively established. It is now clear that the political leadership is not considered by the vast majority to be ‘collaborators’ or any other such term of abuse.

Twelve odd millions of the Iraqi peoples’ have just voted in an undisputed, free and fair election process ending in all important proportional representation. These political representatives do speak for their constituents, be they Kurds, Arabs (either Shia or Sunni), Turkomen, Assyrians, or various Christians and atheists. The various peoples’ have voted under a constitution that they approved, and that has established the formal equality of all the peoples’, and both sexes, before the law.

A legitimate Iraqi government will now be established after protracted negotiations between these legitimate political representatives and it is a foregone conclusion (for those of us who know what stance the major parties are taking) that this government will call for continued military and economic assistance.

Local and foreign racists and sectarians of the most vicious kinds from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and so forth together with residual Baathists (with a shockingly racist history) are now going to wage their vicious racist war against the Iraqi peoples’ who are trying to build a country based on their non-racist constitution.

Anti-racist activists, irrespective of what our stance has been up-to-date, now have to come to terms with the new reality. It is as profound a turnaround for some as was the ending of the America First movement after 07/12/1942.

Steve is not actually calling for elections that require change from the stoke the war type groups; 

But sections of the ruling-elite are screaming about ‘the democracy that we had to have’ that has brought the Iraqi Shia into such a powerful position; and Hamas to power as the new PA ‘government’.  They are literally screaming I told you so!

Steve predicted;

   'a short war like Panama followed by a mess like Somalia.  Yet they bailed out of Somalia and have managed to get the Iraqi people to determine a constitution for themselves and vote in free and fair elections.  I don’t recall Somalia being like that.

  'that America’s heavy handling would make the situation worse and that WMD would probably not be found.'   The situation was Baathist tyranny with tanks, artillery and helicopter gun ships etc.  How, may I respectfully ask, could it get worse for those struggling for the realization of democratic elections?  There are no such enemy weapons systems in the war.  The best the Baathists remnants and sundry Arab Sunni Nationalists can do is fight a totally rear guard action, as most now abandon (actually turn on and help kill or capture) the mad bombers of al-Qaida.  In short they are coming into the political tent. 

Steve says ‘I argued at the time that the war was not about WMD and that the oil argument was simplistic although I argued that you can never take oil out of any Middle East equation.’

Yet I can’t think of any Palestinian; Lebanese; Israeli; Jordanian; Syrian; or Egyptian oil- fields but there may well be.  I know about the Suez Canal and pipelines across Syria, but really.  The people that Steve was marching behind really believed the U.S. was going to war to steal oil and most still (despite the fact that the election rules it out) do.

‘At worst I argued that "oil" was a metaphor for national interest.’

U.S. and British (and Australian) ruling-class national interests no less that are only served by draining the swamp!?!  What national interests are being served by expending so much blood and treasure to remove a tyranny and bring on elections with utterly predictable results?

Steve believes that over Palestine, ‘there will be stalemate for a long time.’  But I don’t have a clue how all this is fitting in with the dramatic TV footage of settlers being bashed by Israeli military forces as they are being pulled out of West Bank ‘outposts’?

‘I don’t argue that the Gaza withdrawal is progress as for years I’ve argued that I couldn’t see the point of Israel attempting to hold it. As the Palestinian rep at Oslo stated ‘You give us Gaza, but what do we get in return.’ 

What has been the point in trying to hold the West Bank, or for that matter the south of Lebanon?  Zionist ambitions have apparently been too big for their belly.  So now they have to build a stupid wall and try to hold all these ‘facts on the ground’ all to be done in unilateral moves.  The rest of the world is not going to accept this as peace being declared, so their belly will shrink even further. 

I don’t think ‘there will be stalemate for a long time.’  It is in the U.S. interest that a Palestinian state be declared relatively soon (I don’t think another ten years could be allowed to slip by unless there is a massive reversal again in U.S. policy).  But a good indication of what is going on from the Zionist side is if the settlements inside the wall (some of which they hope to keep) are expanded against the explicit orders of the U.S.  But that is only one side of the chess game.

‘They do heaps that I don’t expect for instance when they attacked Iraq I expected them to issue a directive to civil authority to keep to their posts and maintain order along the line of how they managed the transition from the Imperial Japanese Army to Allied control.’  Here I think there is an arguable point; but as to the rest I am puzzled because on the topic of predictions Steve thinks he doesn’t have a bad record.