The always-worthwhile Martini Republic explores the stupidity of observers who are trying to claim that Shia muslims "have surpassed the Sunnis as the main threat to the West." Leaving aside the idiocy of trying to debate whether a group of 1 billion people (Sunni) or 250 million (Shia) are the "main threat," the groups that have actually planned and/or executed attacks against the U.S. are overwhelmingly Sunni. So Sunni muslims aren't a "greater threat" than Shia, but Sunni groups are more problematic for U.S. security than are Shia ones.
This is the kind of foolishness that results from deciding what the conclusion will be -- in this case, that the Iraq war is a strategic benefit to the U.S. -- and then desperately trying to find reasonable-sounding support, rather than looking at the facts and making a determination from them, rather than for them. Money quote from Martini:
Just how did we enhance our strategic position vis-a-vis Iran, by eliminating a state which was no threat to us, and yet remained a threat to Iran? What Powerline has done is found a mountain of horseshit, concluded that there must be a pony around somewhere, and then started grasping for an imaginary benefit derived from Bush’s fumbling.The instability in Iraq benefits Iran and hurts the U.S., in terms of power and influence in the Middle East, and continuing a military presence that is steadily increasing U.S. hatred among muslims in the Middle East (and beyond) does nothing to remedy that.
