Interesting article. Lovely cartoon. 
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06022/641783.stm
How Iran won the war in Iraq
With the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq looming, it is clear the project of transforming the Middle East into an area of pro-American client democracies, friendly monarchies and Israel was but a dream of fantasists unable to withstand the light of day. The more likely dispensation is a constellation of pro-Iranian Islamic republics. They will reflect Shiite Islam and how successful it is integrating Arab Christians, Kurds, Turkomens and the Sunni Arab minority. This new political alignment will remain in the news. Iran’s announcement that it will resume enhancing uranium, opening the possibility of the development of nuclear weapons, guarantees the notice of America’s leaders. Surely, this an unexpected debacle for American foreign policy. President Bush’s hope of a secular democracy arising on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates has now been revealed as naive as well as noble. The toppling of Saddam Hussein is a victory for Iran. It is Iran, and not America, that is largely determining the structure of Iraqi government, the motivation and purpose of its armed forces and the nature of its society. It is not benevolent intentions, but the control of institutions and society, that underlies Iran’s increasingly successful pursuit of making Iraq a mirror image of itself.
Iran’s presence in Iraq today is real and deep. A large Iranian embassy in Baghdad oversees financial and technical assistance to not only the government, but also the vast number of Islamic charities honeycombed throughout Iraqi society. Islamic militias, such as the Badr brigades of the ruling Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, provide the recruits for Iraq’s army. The patrols for its city streets are openly supported by Iran’s intelligence agencies. The Iraqi Supreme Court is dominated by ayatollahs trained in Iran, and the new Iraqi constitution mandates that Islamic law must be a foundation of any judgments they render. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian religious pilgrims are encouraged to travel to the Shiite shrines of Najaf and Kerbala, reinforcing links between the religious establishments of the two countries. Everywhere one looks in Iraq, one notices Iran’s presence and influence, its ability to remake Iraq to fit its ambitions and aspirations. Nor will this be reversed: Geopolitical facts and political trends indicate Iran’s power in the Near East will continue to grow. With a population of nearly 70 million, Iran overshadows its Arab neighbors whose inhabitants number not even one half that of Iran. The weight of history – Iran inherits the legacy of Persia’s imperial civilization – and strategic setting have been given added impetus by the liberationist impulses of Shiite Islam. Long the religion of the oppressed and downtrodden in the Muslim world, Shiite Islam offers the consolation of the return of the Hidden Imam (the last of 12 divinely inspired religious leaders in early Islam) and his establishing a reign of universal justice. Iran, as the only country that accepted Shiite Islam, warrants a providential place and the success of Ayatollah Khomeini in creating the Islamic Republic of Iran was due to the popular belief the era of promised redemption had arrived.
These same religious yearnings were vital in Iran’s desire to unite with its Shiite brethren in Iraq. The urgency of this dramatically increased when Saddam Hussein, believing his tyranny threatened by this Shiite religious fervor, began a ferocious persecution of the Shiites. With its forced conscriptions, brutality and executions of religious leaders, the Baathist regime unleashed a reign of terror against the Shiites. They recovered from this onslaught, in part, thanks to Iran. Tehran provided the safe haven that allowed Shiite organizations to rebuild and individuals to restore shattered lives. Iran, too, suffered from Saddam Hussein, not only in a bloody eight years’ war, but with the stress placed upon the important family ties binding the religious leadership of Iran and Iraq. In the end, close ties between Iran and Iraq’s Shiites are rooted in a common history of suffering and martyrdom as much as physical and political facts. Against this, American influence is shallow and fleeting. Even after removing Saddam Hussein, the United States commanded the allegiance and loyalty of few Iraqis other than the Kurds who have been content to preserve their de facto state in northern Iraq. Dearth of support forced the United States to rely upon exiles such as the dodgy financier, Ahmad Chalabi (later revealed as having contacts with Iranian intelligence) or the former Baathist official, Iyad Allawi, all of whom had little knowledge of conditions, much less organization, inside Iraq. The Coalition Provisional Authority, installed after the fall of Baghdad, left no legacy of good will or partnership. Torn between imitating Gen. MacArthur in Japan and ideas of economic shock therapy, it floundered in corruption and incompetence, adding fuel to a Sunni insurgency that has bedeviled American and Coalition military forces. The Shiites – aside from two confrontations with American Marines in Najaf in 2004 and scattered fighting with British troops in Basra – have worked within the American system. But cooperation has been wary and unenthusiastic, and tellingly, they have used the parliament not for advancing secular democracy but for promoting Islamic government.
Following this, what is the likely judgment of history on America’s recent experience in Iraq? Without doubt, scholars will notice the terms American fondly used to describe their impact upon Iraq – “Shock and Awe” or “Thunder Run” favored by American tank generals. Like a great force of nature, American military might have leveled the political landscape of Iraq. But, in the aftermath, America was left with almost no political assets or supporters in Iraq. Lacking these, it is unable, no matter how preponderant its military power, to make any lasting or permanent change of its own initiative in the nature of Iraqi politics or society. Of course, Saddam Hussein is gone, and few will mourn him; debate will focus upon the cost of overthrowing him and the expenditure of blood, treasure and credibility. More pertinently, hurricanes leave little in their wake. Nevertheless, amidst the wreckage of Baathist tyranny and the already passing interlude of American Iraq, a crescent of Shia Islamic republics, inspired and led by Iran, is emerging throughout the Middle East. Difficult as it is, the United States must now abandon the Bush administration’s zeal for utopian engineering that has animated the war in Iraq. Its moment, if it ever was possible, is irretrievably past. But Shiite ascendancy is not necessarily inimical to American interests. Indeed, Americans might be well advised to rediscover individuals such as Morgan Shuster, the American who served as Iran’s treasurer-general in 1911-12 and preserved that country’s independence from Britain and Russia, earning America the gratitude of Iran. The future, after the inevitable withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq, is not only a time for learning lessons, bitter as they might be. It is also a time for new opportunity, if we will only remember our earlier diplomatic history of good relations and friendship with Iran and the Shiite world.