War in Iran = Spreading of the Iraq War

One of the greatest fears of war is that it will expand, uncontrollably, across neighboring boarders. Although the US media makes it sound like a war with Iran would be a separate "war of choice", there are indications that the situation is more like a war that is spreading of its own accord. This is dangerous, because a war of choice could be stopped by garnering enough public pressure against it. Unfortunately, the US is loosing the Iraq war, and Iran stands to be the unintended winner. Pressure will be intense on both political parties to prevent this from happening. The pressures for the Iraq war to spread into Iran have taken on a life of their own.

It might be going too far to say that the Bush administration was duped into war with Iraq by Iran, but it's not too far off the mark. According to one private intelligence source, Iran supported the US invasion of Iraq with intelligence: "It can be argued that Iran provided exactly the intelligence that would provoke the U.S. attack in a way most advantageous to Iran -- by indicating that the occupation of Iraq would not be as difficult as migt be imagined, particularly if the United States destroyed the Baath Party and all of its institutions. U.S. leaders were hearing what they wanted to hear anyway, but Iran made certin they heard this much more clearly." [1]

Two side-bar notes: 1) The Bush neo-cons, and Judith Miller of the New York Times, portreyed Ahmed Chalabi of the US-based Iraqi National Congress (INC) as solid sources. However, Chalabi and his sources were deeply distrusted by the CIA. David Corn notes, "the CIA, starting in the mid-’90s... They worried that Iranian intelligence was working through the INC, and there was one INC official in particular, a man named Aras Habib, who they intercepted communications about and came to believe that he was working quite actively with Iranian intelligence." [2] This is in addition to the widely discussed issue of Chalabi tipping the Iranians off to US's breaking of some of their codes. Web LINK

2) It is widely felt that when the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer, disbanded the Iraqi military and government bureaucracy, he sealed the disasterous fate of Iraq that we are witnessing today. This point is made eloquently in an interview with a U.S. soldier responsible for civil affairs documented by Trish Wood. This was the wish of Iran, and the U.S. seemed to fall into the trap. [3]

The Shia are the majority in Iraq, and to a great degree are allied with Iran. George Friedman provides more details, but the bottom line is that Iran is well-positioned to take advantage of the U.S. being stuck in a quagmire, which we call the Iraq war. When stuck in a quagmire, the only way out is.... out. However, now that the U.S. is succeeded in creating a climate in Iraq in which the Shia, and Iran, are likely to come out on top if the U.S. extracts itself, that's not an acceptable option either.

So, since staying in the quagmire, and pulling out of the muck are not acceptable options, the third option becomes the logical one; hammer Iran while pulling out of the quagmire. A fourth option might be negotiating a deal with Iran: "We won't hammer you, if you let us get out of this mess in Iraq without taking advantage of the situation."

It's all in the hands of the Iranian leaders. They might think that allowing the U.S. to bomb them will win popular support across the middle-east; people in that reagion know what's going on, even if the U.S. corporate media is keeping Americans in the dark. It would be a risky gamble, but if the U.S. bombs Iran, then we'll know that Iran has decided to see if it can bring down the U.S. by further self-inflicted wounds.

For related reading, See: Bush Drawn into Iraq-Trap by Iran

Sources:

[1] Friedman, George, Stratfor "Break Point: What Went Wrong"

[2] DemocracyNow interview with David Corn and MICHAEL ISIKOFF, September 12, 2006 regarding their book "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War." Web LINK

[3] "What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It" by Trish Wood. Also, C-SPAN Book TV Interview with Trish Wood, which includes this soldier's interview Web LINK

Additional Information:

Former Bush National Security Council staff, Flynt Leverett, says, "We’ve put ourselves in a situation in Iraq where at this point we need them (the Iranians) more than they need us."

out of control, war spilling over, spreading, expanding