Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
My piece on "Pitching the Imperial Republic," comparing Napoleon's fiasco in Egypt to Bush's quagmire in Iraq (since he likes historical analogies) is now available at Tomdispatch.com. Please link back to Tom's site if you reference it.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/23/2007 01:36:00 AM
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Winner, October 5, 2007, Scott Nearing Award for Courageous Scholarship (Awarded by the Graduate Students of the Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania).
Winner, 2005 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, Hunter College.
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5 Comments:
Dear Professor Cole
I remember an Incident in The Emperor's campaigns where he visited Frederick the Great's tomb with some of his officers
He barked at them "Hats off Gentlemen. If he were alive today we wouldn't be standing here."
I watched the other person you talked about fail his History Viva Voce last night.
On Worldwide TV!
You will undoubtedly enjoy the image at the top of this page.
There is another interesting similarity between Bonaparte's Egypt and Bush's Iraq fiasco.
A key motivation for both adventure were global power struggles. In Bonaparte's case, he invaded Egypt as result of rivalries with England, and its aim was to challenge British colonization of India.
For Bush's adventure, it seems that a key goal is control of oil with the ultimate goal of being able to control the emergence of China and India.
Seems that in both cases, Middle east is the battle ground for East-West conflict. In Each case West's shortsighted policies lose to the East's long term approach.
If I didn't follow TomsDispatch link, I wouldn't have known about Prof Cole's speaking event at the New America Foundation. I am planning on being there in person on Connecticut Ave office of the foundation in DC. Perhaps I will get my picture taken or one of Prof Cole's books signed.
Thank you for a great piece of writing. The comparison with Napoleon shows how little is actually new under the sun merely theme and variation. While Bush’s surge is now ebbing and draining down the gaping maw of failure I would just like to add that in one sense the Iraq War has been a resounding success. While the plan was domination of the Middle-East, and still is as well as being fully supported by the democrat leadership, another part of the plan was the promise of huge profits for the military-industrial complex and other corporate industries. These profits have been realized and are in the billions of dollars so in that sense the invasion of Iraq has been a success. Of course the great irony of all the rhetoric promoting democracy at gunpoint has further accelerated the demise of our own creaky and dying democracy may it rest in peace. And such a deal! Maybe ten or so wealthy individuals have fattened their coffers with billions of dollars while the rest of us get… what?
One thing is clear and that is that there are, fortunately, limits to even American military power though that has not seemed to sink into the consciousness of Bush, that is if Bush can be described as actually being conscious. However that does not mean that we will be leaving any time soon even if the British sink our fleet. Scientists say that the oil wells will be dry in about fifty years and as the oil dwindles the violence will escalate as nations vie for what is left. China is rising as a new industrial giant and Russia is recovering from its economic woes and American influence and power is in decline so I would guess things are going to get very ugly as the oil disappears.
Bush’s invasion while a failure it is a failure that will be a long, long time failing and we will be in the Middle-East for years. Some are predicting Bush will start a war with Iran sometime in the next two months followed by an attack on Syria by Israel. And even if a democrat is in the Whitehouse after Bush leaves all the major democrat candidates have said that nothing is off the table when it comes to Iran so I am not looking for any changes in American imperialism any time soon. Oh gosh, I forgot, democrats don’t get us embroiled in wars not FDR, not Kennedy nor LBJ or Bill Clinton and the tooth fairy is real.
I guess that root of our problem is that all national leaders are completely insane. Really this is about the haves and have-nots and all the crap about nationalism is just that -- crap. The real enemy has always been and always shall be our very own leaders. Oh no, the CIA is knocking at my door and I gotta run now.
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