Predicting the Outcome of the War in Iraq

Four years after the United States invaded Iraq, Iran is ascendant partially due to high gas prices and regional hegemony, many in the region view the Americans in retreat, and Arab countries, their own feelings of impotence punctuated, are awash in sharpening sectarian currents that many blame the United States for exacerbating.

Iran has deepened its relationship with Palestinian Islamic groups, assuming a financial role once filled by Iraq, in moves it sees as defensive and the United States views as aggressive. In Lebanon and Iraq, Iran is fighting proxy battles against the United States with funds, arms and ideology. And in the vacuum created by the U.S. overthrow of Iranian foes in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is powerfully exerting a prestige reminiscent of the heady days of the 1979 Islamic revolution, when Iranian clerics led the toppling of a U.S.-backed government. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's messianic and fiery leader, isn't all that favorable at home however. Many Iranians, particularly its well-educated members, are increasingly troubled by his braggadocio and foreign extravagances.

It's painstakingly obvious that the US invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq has given rise to Shiite supremacy. At the core of the Shia resurgence lies a fiesty firebrand in Muquta Al Sadr, viewed by many as the legitimate ruler of Iraq. Prior to the invasion Mr. Muqtada's Mahdi army was a but a small nuisancewith Sunni power well in tact. Now, the capricious cleric is perhaps the most influential person, with a large supply of adorning followers that routinely practice his militant anti-American message. Muquata is doing to Iraq what Hassan Nasrallah did to Lebanon more than twenty years ago when he formed Hezbollah following the Israeli invasiona militant group that employs terrorism to resist Israel, which, not surprisingly, is on the State Department's list of groups that sponsor and/or engage in terrorism. Like his predecessor in Iraq his fiery sermons drew the admiration of the uneducated and dispossessed. The only difference between the two is Mr. Nasrallah carved out a reputation on his own while Mr. Al Sadr came to prominence by riding the coattails of his father Mohammed Al Sadr.

After going into hiding in neighboring Iran so as to avoid being targeted in the Baghdad security drivePresident George Bush's vaunted "surge that was just starting, he appears to have returned to vamp up his anti-American message. Many argue that the fervent leader is exploiting the cult-like dedication he inspires among his legion of mainly poor and uneducated Shia believers to evoke the image of the Shias' "hidden imam" whose reappearance on earth is assumed to foretell an era of peace and justice, which is analogous in respects to premillenialismin Christian eschatology is the belief that Christ will literally reign on the earth for 1,000 years after his second coming. Not surprisingly, in order for this occur conditions in the temporal must worsen; hence, politics is futile. This radical ideology is supported and entertained in America by such irrational madmen as Jerry Fallwell. This very radical and unthinking belief is the cornerstone of the ruling mullahs in Iran, so the very notion of appearing in Iraq is worrisome but inevitable.

So the question is will his return to Iraq sabotage American objectives and instigate a full-blown theocracy, or will it be quashed by American and Iraqi security forces. I'm afraid with Iraqi forces so helplessly inadequate and American forces overstretched and enervated, the former seems more likely.

Sponsored by EnterTo.com the first REAL spam free email

Click Below to discover and share content from anywhere on the web

Politics as Unusual

Predicting the Outcome of the War in Iraq