Koreanising Iraq
Over at Frog in a Well Korea Jonathan Dresner has brought up George Bush’s recent analogy between the US involvement in present-day Iraq and the country’s historical involvement in Korea. This seems to have become quite a hot internet topic already and has been dealt with by Juan Cole at his blog and by Robert Koehler of Marmot’s Hole fame as well as Fred Kaplan at Slate. Here’s the comment I left at Juan Cole’s blog:
I think what Bush is saying is that in their fantasies he and Cheney would very much like Iraq to turn out like the South Korea of the, say, 1960s and 1970s. That is, ruled by a dictatorial military strongman; politically and economically subordinate to the US (and Japan maybe); and with a number of massive, strategically important US bases protecting US interests in the area and projecting power toward the big enemies (Russia/China). But of course fantasies are only fantasies.
(By the way, I’d advise against reading the comments at the Marmot’s Hole post on this - it’s like an asylum for professional wingnuts).
Cute. Thanks for the link, though.
Comment by Robert — June 2, 2007 @ 1:33 am
an apt simile for the Hole’s bleachers - I sometimes wonder how S.Korea attracts so very many of this species, it’s as though job adverts are regularly shown on the O’Reilly Factor ..
Comment by trachys — June 2, 2007 @ 10:14 am