Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Iran, Iraq, and a Very Hard Place

Tonight President Obama declared the 'war' in Iraq over (sort of ... mostly). Our combat troops are coming home.

Well, not quite home, not all of them. There's still Afghanistan - and the 'good' battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Quite a few will be heading east to the inhabited rubble of Kabul or Kandahar.

A lot of people who helped vote Mr. Obama into office are wondering why we are still fighting anywhere in that part of the world. They are wondering why the President is so adamant and intent about steering the course entered by George W. Bush. I'd wondered too, until I glanced at a world map, where the answer was obvious ...

And the answer has little to do with Afghanistan, or Iraq, but everything to do with what lies between them - Iran. Once an ally of the West, a Persian bulwark against a semi-cohesive Arab Union, Iran then moved through revolution to become our strident enemy, eventually morphing again during the first Gulf War to inhabit the uncomfortable dual role of our enemy and erstwhile friend-in-arms against Saddam. Now, despite the cooperation required to calm the Shiite extremists in post-invasion Iraq, Iran is largely just an avowed enemy. More accurately the government is, through President-by-decree Ahmadinejad and his theocratic handlers.

And our enemy Iran is rushing to build 'peaceful' nuclear capacity that could also give them the 'bomb'. And the thought of a fundamentalist Shia Iran unleashing its own genie from the atomic bottle is unthinkable to most countries, but especially so for Israel, Turkey, and also the Sunni led Arab nations we call our 'friends' in the region.

That's why Afghanistan remains a battlefied. The powers-that-be want a sympathetic government in firm control there, to serve as a friendly bookend to a firmly-controlled and friendly Iraq.

To use a groan-worthy cliché/metaphor, we want Iran to be caught between 'Iraq and a Hard Place'. Afghanistan is a very hard place, indeed.

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