Setting aside how we got here, it’s time to wake up to a sobering fact: The greatest beneficiary of the war in Iraq is Iran.
Bush administration policy makers are starting to grasp this frightening fact. It should have been clear for a while—when Maliki ordered the hunt for the kidnappers of an American soldier in a Shi'ite neighborhood in Baghdad called off, when he stood up the President at a dinner meeting in Jordan, when his vice-president denounced Israel and the Jews—that the government the Iraqis have put in place, with our help, is not "a stable democracy" and "an ally in the war on terror."
The grotesque scene at the hanging of Saddam made the picture crystal clear. The dictator’s execution, understandable but perhaps unwise under the best of circumstances, was conducted under the worst. Performed hurriedly and unconstitutionally on the morning of one of Islam’s most sacred holidays, in defiance of the Iraqi constitution’s requirement that death warrants be signed by the president and co-vice presidents, Saddam met his end at the hands of what looked more like a lynch mob than the representatives of a sovereign government. His executioners and guards were chanting the name of the head of the largest Shi'ite militia/death squad--the one we were supposed to deal with in Sadr City near the beginning of the war, the brutal killer who is Iran's top ally in Iraq. With the death of Saddam (and the emboldenment of the Shi'a theocrats), the country has reverted to its ethno-religious tribal roots. We need to look clearly at Iraq and the region and make some large-scale strategic changes. It's time to start acting to check the power of Iran.
This is going to be extremely difficult. With what are we going to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons? Army Chief of Staff Schoonmaker says that the army "will break" without more troops. Colin Powell says the army is "about broken." Rather than being able to fight two major wars, there is a huge question of whether we can insert 20,000 new troops into Baghdad. It has been suggested that, with American troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have Iran "surrounded." Sort of the way Johnston and Lee had the Army of the Potomac "surrounded" in April 1865.
While we have been focusing on the paramount threat of a broken, contained dictator, his neighbor—a nation of 75,000,000, with 5,000,000 men under arms and another 20,000,000 of fighting age—has been getting much, much worse than a free ride. During the Reagan and Clinton years, according to Richard Perle, virtually all our CIA assets in that country were "rolled up" due to an intelligence fiasco; and in 2004, a grotesque "accidental" email posting by a CIA operative revealed the names of the Company’s current spies to an Iranian double agent. We now have no eyes and ears on the ground in Iran at all.
It is now clear that the top cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi, lied to us about the situation in Iraq. He has been charged by the U.S. with providing intelligence to the Iranians after the invasion. The Iraqi prime minister, Maliki, spent most of the Saddam years in exile in Persia, and now relies on Moktada Sadr for his political position. Crowds of upwards of 100,000 march in Baghdad in support of Hezbollah, chanting the same slogan of "death to America" I recall from the studnets outside the American embassy in Tehran.
Then, there is this development: on December 20, a British soldier and translator for the head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, was charged under the Official Secrets Act for passing secrets to Iran. If the charges are true, Iranian intelligence has had a front-row seat at the heart of the British military. The case of "Daniel James," an Iranian immigrant to the U.K., confirms the existence of Persian sleeper agents at high levels of Coalition command.
In this country, you may recall the conviction of David Safavian, the Iranian American whose ties to Jack Abramoff helped to bring down the GOP in the last election. This could be plain-vanilla political corruption—but it would be well worth looking into Safavian’s decisions as head of the federal procurement office in the White House Office of Management and Budget, where he set purchasing policy for the entire government. Many people have argued that the administration’s scandalous contracting and purchasing policies have harmed this country more than an attack from a foreign power; maybe they actually constitute an attack from a foreign power.
One could make a strong case that Iran is stronger now than at any time since the battle of Thermopylae. This is good for us how? And who is responsible?
America faces many threats, large and small, from illegal immigration to North Korean intercontinental missiles. The Republicans have been fear-mongering and distracting the voting public for largely, if not purely, political purposes. It is time to evaluate the real threats, and take cognizance of the subversion that may have already infiltrated our government.
By no means do I advocate yet another preemptive war. Even if it would not constitute one of the greatest war crimes in history, a nuclear attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would quite possibly be ineffectual--and anything short of a nuclear attack would almost certainly accomplish nothing. Gen. Bill Odom, former director of the National Security Agency, has said that it is inevitable that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons; be that as it may, the U.S. is in no position now to take effective steps to prevent them. What is important is to think globally and strategically about the short-, medium-, and long-term threat that Iran poses to our interests, and to global peace and stability. In the long run, an Iran with which we are at peace is undoubtedly the best outcome, and is probably not unattainable, as the recent electoral defeats for Ahmadinejad have demonstrated. But meanwhile, we need a clear picture of Iranian influence on American policy. Waxman, Conyers, Biden et al. should put this issue high on their investigative agendas.