In return for cooling the Bush administration's threats to attack Iran over the nuclear issue (NIE report of November 2007) Tehran helped reduce American casualties in Iraq. Tehran sees in the current lull in attacks against US forces an added benefit: increased domestic US pressure to withdraw US forces from Iraq. In withdrawing US forces from Iraq, the field will become free for Tehran to dominate the world’s richest oil region, thanks to the removal of Saddam’s regime and to Tehran’s infrastructure of control over southern Iraq.
Most of Iraq’s 15 million Shiites live in southern Iraq. Shiism’s holiest shrines are there. The prominent families of Najaf and Karbala trace their roots to long lines of marriages with the leading clerics families of Iran. Ayatollahs have cross-country followings. From Najaf and Karbala, Iranian clerics often led the world of Shiism.
Furthermore, Tehran’s men control Iraq. Personal rivalries among Iraq’s Shiite leaders, particularly the Sistani/Hakeem camp (supporters of the Maliki cabinet today) and the Sadr organization strengthen Tehran’s grip on Baghdad. In their turf wars, these men are compelled to seek assistance from Tehran. Iran is their natural habitat. It is inconceivable that these leaders would turn to Iraq’s Sunni neighbors for support. Divide and rule is a powerful weapon in the hand of Iran’s ayatollahs to keep Iraq’s Shi’a politicians virtual surrogates and Tehran their ultimate arbiter. That Iran made representatives of Al-Sadr and Al-Hakeem/Iraqi government end their fighting in Basra (The Nation, March 31, 2008) is a case in point.
In Arab countries, the Shiites look to Iran for deliverance from Sunni subjugation. To Sunnis, the Shiites are heretics. Shi'a areas in Saudi Arabia are the poorest despite containing the entire oil wealth of that country. In Bahrain, the Sunni minority mistreats the 60% Shi'a majority. In Kuwait, the Shiites are second-class citizens. In Lebanon, the Shiites are underprivileged. In Yemen, the Zaydis, a Shi'a sect, accuse the Sunni government of genocide. In Syria, until seizing power in 1970, the Alawite minority, a Shi'a sect, lived in abject poverty. In Iraq, until 2003, the Shi'a majority was deprived. Egyptian President Mubarak declared recently that, Shiites in Arab states were more loyal to Iran than to their own countries. The notion that Iran might encourage the GCC Shiites to demand their human rights sends shivers in GCC circles and beyond.
Regardless of whether the U.S. increases the level of its military presence in Iraq or withdraws altogether; whether the Democrats or the Republicans control the White House and/or Capitol Hill, and regardless of whether Iraq emerges from its current chaos as a single entity, a federal republic, or broken-up into three states the occupation has set in motion events that make it difficult to predict how lifting the lid on Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic tensions could lead to anything but to Iranian domination over southern Iraq, to Shi’a emboldenment everywhere, and to endless long-Term Shi’a/Sunni conflicts spilling rivers of blood and breeding hoards of Jihadists until the Sunni leaders in the region would either accept Iran’s hegemony or succeed in stopping the march of Shiism.
Washington could, of course, destroy Iran’s infrastructure militarily. But, that would not solve much in the long-term. Washington has little choice today but to deal with Tehran on regional politics in the Middle East.


Elie Elhadj
author: The Islamic Shield
Blog: http://journals.aol.com/eeh100/daring-opinion/

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Kind of reminds me of a time when we where given an ultimatum about how we where to accept a change. We would trial the change and see if it worked or not. the trial lasted for many months until we were working under trial for ever..Open ended trials..We declared later that we would never again enter into such an agreement and here in Iraq, you see another one...God I hope they don't fall for that one.

Captain

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