One of the most stupid things I have heard from a Mideast Expert...

[Farnan]

According to my professor in my Intro to the Mideast class, the US invaded Iraq in order to esatblish an anti-Iranian coalition of Sunni states? What the heck is she smoking, why would he overthrow a fervently anti-Iranian Sunni leader in order to create a Sunni coalition to oppose Iran? When I asked her she went the whole, the White House is stupid line. Wow, that from a proffessor...

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

Well, she may have meant an an anti-Iranian coalition of Sunni states controlled/guided from washington? Certainly US had very little to no influence with Sadam so maybe her idea is they wanted a more stable leadership they could control.

(just playing devil's advocate....)

But to then resort to a lame response (oh the government are stupid) when challenged is pretty pathetic for a teacher of any level.

[Farnan]

Well there's also the point that the leadership of the new Iraqi government is primarily Shi'ite that also contradicts it...

Also, when she stated that Iran has been helping the Kurdish Pershmenga and allied with them, a light went up in my head and I thought, "Isn't there a Kurdish rebellion in Iran right now? If so why would the Iranians be helping their enemies?"

[Your Lame Sister]

hmmmm... what's so stupid about what he said? personally i believe it's wrong, but i wouldn't say it's the 'supidest thing' one can say.

[PacSubCom]

You quote her out of context maybe? She may talk about the plan they had, not the outcome. Anyway, the installation of an anti-Iranian coalition would only be part of the means, not the end. The end is control of the energy, the means is to achieve regime change in middle eastern countries.

[Last Roman]

why go to all this trouble for oil when we have plenty here? Personally, I think the invasion of Iraq was more for geo-political reasons than that for resources.

[Hotspur]

Agreed.

[Siblesz]

An argument that would make more sense could be that the Iraq invasion's real intention was to split the Middle East in half between Shi'ites and Sunnis. You know... the old school rule of divide and conquer.

And suddenly, Americans won't look too bad as opposed to complete and utter chaos.

[King Sakkeus]

Yes it certainly is in the US interests to have "weak" states in the Middle-East. Powerfull states that can tell you go screw yourself and deprive you of extremely important resources that you need to survive are understandably not hip.
The invasion of Iraq also serves another purpose. The US can put leverage on several gulf states because Saddam was the enemy of everybody. He had no allies, even Syria sided against him, first in the Iran-Iraq war and then in the Gulf War 1.
Saddam wasnt going to do what US told them to either, after what happened in the 90's and Iraq wasnt strong enough to seriously challenge Iran.

Then theres the obvius possibility that the next fellow in power after Saddam wouldnt be so secular. He might even be pro-Iran and thats not very cool either.

[Erich von Manstein]

Be wary of what those so-called "experts" tell you in college. I took several classes on Islam and the Middle East from a Harvard-educated prof and, while I enjoyed his classes, he was about as biased as they come. The texts in every class were by an Egyptian prof (can't remember the name) with the basic premise that on Middle Easterners were qualified to teach about the Middle East. If that's not racist I don't know what is.

As far as i'm concerned, any class on Islam or the Middle East that doesn't use Bernard Lewis for even one source isn't going to teach you what you need to know...i.e, the facts. If you want propaganda, listen to the "experts." If you want the facts you'll have to find them yourself. Many college profs, even the Ivy League-educated ones, wouldn't know expertise if it slapped them in the face.