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Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not long back told Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that the best way for him to end the ongoing violence and make sure stability and security was to start out the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq. Khamenei was explicit in his desire to see the rapid departure of American soldiers, but the aftermaths of a untimely U.S. withdrawal would prove to be not one thing short of catastrophic.
There are three basic parties, excluding American Democrats, which are actively pushing for the remotion of U.S. and coalition troops from Iraq: Iran, the Shiite faction led by radical Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the alien jihadists who have flocked to Iraq to confront the United States in the Global War on Terror.
Iran has been making a concerted venture to establish itself as the leading state in the Middle East. In pursuit of this strategic goal, Khamenei and Iranian President Ahmadinejad have been actively antagonizing the United States over their nuclear program in order to portray Iran as a nation that ought to be reckoned with. Simultaneously, the Iranians have used Hezbollah to wage a proxy war versus Israel, and the Shiites in southern Iraq to foment unrest that threatens the fragile government in Baghdad.
The conflict in Lebanon and the increasing Shiite-Sunni violence are meant to further demonstrate to the west that Iran has the ability, and the will, to destabilize the entire region for political gain. With the United States out of Iraq, there would be little to stop the Iranians from turning Iraq into a satellite state that could aid cement Iran’s hegemony in the Middle East.
Muqtada al-Sadr has been a thorn in the side of the United States since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. His Mehdi Army has confronted U.S. and coalition troops in battle and his followers are largely responsible for the Shiite death squads attacking the Sunni minority and pushing Iraq closer to all-out civil war. Al-Sadr is closely aligned with the Shiite leadership in Iran and he has systematically called for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq. The absence of U.S. troops would grant Al-Sadr’s militia to conduct a genocide venture versus the Sunnis while supplying Iran with further and added leverage over the government in Baghdad.
Finally, Islamic extremists from all over the world have traveled to Iraq to join the battle versus the United States and the west. Al-Qaeda in Iraq and respective other fundamentalist groups, while constituting a minority of the Iraqi insurgency, are determined to take vantage of the current chaos to wage war on anyone, Iraqis included, who opposes the formation of an Islamic state. The withdrawal of American troops from Iraq would embolden the jihadists, who would then take vantage of the power vacuum to publicize Islamic rule similar to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Opposite the parties calling for America to leave Iraq are the groups with the most to lose in the event of a withdrawal of U.S. troops.
First on this list is the current Iraqi unity government. The leaders in Baghdad recognise that the presence of coalition forces is the only reason the circumstance in Iraq has not devolved into all-out civil war. Withdrawing American soldiers and their allies would leave the Shiite and Sunni death squads free to conduct their sectarian war while a fledgling Iraqi Army stood by unable to stop the carnage. In the event of full-fledged sectarian violence, the government in Baghdad would collapse, leaving a void that would likely be filled by the Iranians.
The second group opposed to a U.S. withdrawal is the Sunni minority. Yes, it’s unfeigned that the Sunnis make up the bulk of the insurgency waging war versus coalition troops. But the Sunnis are fighting for a place in Shiite overshadowed Iraqi society. Waging a remorseless effort versus the U.S. and Iraqi armies, and versus the central government, is the only bargaining chip available to a group that would surely be purposed for annihilation in a sectarian war. In an odd twist, the Sunnis have to attack the Americans to make them stay until a political accommodation may be reached.
Finally, Iraq’s neighboring countries are fearful of a powerful Iran, aligned with a Shiite-led Iraq that would threaten Sunni regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and allround the Middle East. While none of these governments like the idea of U.S. troops in the region, exceptionally for an extended period, the substitute in the form of an Iraq-Iran confederation that could dominate the entire Middle East is even more distasteful.
Despite the difficultnesses being faced in Iraq, the United States will have to see this fight through to the end. The fragile unity government in Baghdad ought to be given a chance to survive on it is own.
Pulling American troops out now would give the jihadists the victory they have long been searching for, would make America look weak in the eyes of the world, would thrust Iraq into a bloody civil war, and would invent a power vacuum in the Middle East that would grant Iran to establish itself as the territorial hegemon. Those are the unfeigned aftermaths of a untimely American withdrawal.
American Taliban Power Jihadists Radical
“We all agree with the Taliban.”—Rush Limbaugh, October 9, 2009
America’s important global enemy—Islamic radicalism—insists on government by theocracy, curtails civil liberties, embraces torture, represses women, wants to eradicate homosexuals from society, and insists on the use of strength over diplomacy. Remind you of a sure American political party? In American Taliban, Markos Moulitsas pulls no punches as he compares how the Republican Party and Islamic radicals maintain similar worldviews and tactics. Moutlitsas also challenges the media, fellow progressives, and our elected officials to call the radical right on their jihadist tactics more forcefully for the good of our nation and safety of all citizens.
Review
“It isn’t possible to understand American politics now without understanding the worldview and arguments of Markos Moulitsas. If you still believe the beltway caricature of the squishy, compromising, conciliatory American left, American Taliban must disabuse you of that notion.”
—Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show
“Moulitsas alerts us to a clear and present risk in America: radical zealots who disregard our Constitution and our freedoms and who camouflage themselves as patriots.”
—Roger Ebert, film critic
“I can’t do not forget a time in my life when anti-intellectualism and intolerance—from America’s prejudice versus evolutionary science to it is reactionary condemnation of a scholarly African American president—has been more pervasive. The time has never been more ripe for a book such as this. American Taliban reminds us that fanaticism isn’t always an import.”
—Brett Gurewitz, Bad Religion
“A indepth compendium of right-wing hypocrisy and selective memory that is either hilarious or tragic, depending on your mood. And it’s all lovingly couched in outrage and profanity.”
—David Cross, I Drink for a Reason
“While not afraid to laugh at the American Taliban, Markos Moulitsas sees the culture warriors for the insidious, dangerous strength they present to a free and democratic society.”
—Amanda Marcotte, Executive Editor, Pandagon.net
“Markos writes with a sense of right and wrong and armed with facts to let you know: no, you’re not crazy. What you suspected all along was true—America’s right wing lives on a myth of self-constructed lies with regards to the Other, with a juvenile disregard for reality, and Obama’s presidency has further radicalized an already radical conservative movement.”
—Janeane Garofalo, comic and actor
“Markos Moulitsas vividly discloses how the radical right and numerous leaders in the Republican Party , contrary to their incessant claims, actually hate the cherished American values of freedom, justice, tolerance and diversity of thought and expression. With sparkling clarity, American Taliban sounds the alarm on the well-funded, highly-placed authoritarians in this country who work daily to strip away civil liberties and viciously malign gays, women and other groups, and shows why they are treacherous to American democracy. We better listen.”
—Michelangelo Signorile, The Michelangelo Signorile Show, Sirius XM Radio
American Taliban Power Jihadists Radical Photo
American Taliban Power Jihadists Radical Picture
American Taliban Power Jihadists Radical Photo
American Taliban Power Jihadists Radical Photo
Most helpful client reviews
89 of 98 humans found the following review helpful.
 Objective review: no news here but a heap of plainly still need to read it
By Granite City Green Guy
Many of the one- and five-star reviews here on this book are evidently linked to the reader’s political views. My goal to be attained rating is right up the middle, for the most part for two reasons: there’s little here that I didn’t already recognise and candidly the quality of the writing is more or less lacking. Most of the material in the book will be intimate to anybody who has remunerated modest attention to the cultural and political landscape since 1980 and even the specifics will be old hat to any person who might remotely be considered a political junkie. It is, in a heap of ways, a rehash of mainstream political reporting on the American conservative motion of the last 30 years.
That said, American Taliban offers something to a larger audience, those who may not have remunerated much attention to politics amid presidential elections or have for one reason or another obviated immersion into the morass of hypocrisy, duplicity, and deceit that has marked the right since at least the 1972 election. It’s all here: the mystery organizations, the shady corporate contributions, the lawful sounding foundations, the suburban churches, and all the wealthy white men who have led such organizations since the 1950s. Markos offers a once in a while compelling critique, arguing that the core values of these men (and now and then the women) actually do parallel those of the Taliban in a great deal of ways. This is not surprising, since theocracy and nationalism look somewhat similar all over time and space. The indispensable thing for those who are unfamiliar with the details is the very clear case he lays out to demonstrate that while American conservatives love to talk in regards to freedom, patriotism, the Constitution, equality of opportunity, and from time to time even social justice they actually help none of these things. Instead, they operate within a massive and well furnished political structure that was designed to maintain the power of a small, white, male, Christian elite at the expense of every one else. The fact that they have sold this set of values dissembled in the rhetoric of patriotism and Christianity for so long is only testament to the frequent lack of critical thinking amidst the voting population as a whole.
The usual problem with the book is it is tone. While I may be grateful for an Al Franken rejoinder to Rush or even a dryer James Carville memoir, Markos is not that kind of writer. His book reads not different from a well-edited series of blog entries, chatty, engaging stories, a great deal of data, into which the occasional expletive or slang phrase is interjected to “keep it real.” This style has it is place and may reach an audience with this book. But I would have been personally much happier with a more professional tone and a less partisan demonstration of the information– which, in it is own right, is a damning condemnation of American conservatism anyway. Why mute it down by pushing the style more toward l33t speak than a presidential address? The lack of “seriousness” (if I may) will prevent this book from getting anything more than another partisan tome; it’s easy to reject not on a factual basis but because of how it’s written. It will not be taken severely by the mainstream media or others who actually influence the way the masses think. Granted, we may not need another Richard Hofstadter at this point but one would have wished for a more professional voice if only to make the book sound more creditable to those not intimate with it is content.
On the remainder _American Taliban_ is an interesting compendium of anecdotes and info to support a straight-forward critique of the current state of American conservativism.As such it is damning and depressing. I wish millions would read it but I fear the peculiar approach taken will limit it is influence to a littler audience, including the kinds of persons that are likely responsible for most of the one- and five-star ratings here at Amazon.
Recommended for: young voters, political neophytes, any individual that call themselves conservative and make underneath $500K/year
305 of 348 people found the following review helpful.
 Excellent
By Book buyer
Excellent work. Points out the foolish macho nationalism affected by so called conservatives. The kind of “conservatives” who think not one thing of running up debt, growing government, announce publicly or officially illegal pre-emptive wars based on lies, and ruining the environment. barry Goldwater is spinning like a top in his grave that such humans call themselves conservatives. The kind who are saps for the wealthy and international corporations because they are so frighted of everything they may only react with bluster and anger and are without apparent effort used. As a multi combat tour Marine Corps vet and a proud progressive I have no problem seeing them get a little taste of their own medicine even though with much more class and factual accuracy than anything they may muster up. It’s past time to fight back versus ignorance and blind anger engendered by the fear of these corporate pawns.
218 of 256 humans found the following review helpful.
Sad but true
By Israel Grey
Markos connects the dots on the apparent (to those that care to see it) facts that the right wing power bases are abusing America for the short term gains of millionairs, the ego of the religious extremists that make up their self defeating base and to generate wealth from advertizing on their hyped up media empire. It is a arousing and attention holding and dangerous connect of thoughtless, aroused and ego-driven extremist that serve. Hopefully, the majority of Americans will reject the extremism and idiocy that is growing in blind, frothing support.
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