Curmudgeon's Corner

"Iran Won."

Posted by Al Campbell on Oct. 22, 2011

U.S., Political, Economy, Quality of Life

“Iran Won.”  That is how LTC (ret) Ralph Peters led off his segment on the Fox Morning Show today.  He said this in response to the lead-off question of what went wrong in Iraq that led to the U.S. being unable to have a contingent of troops remain behind after our major withdrawal.

Peters pointed out that the U.S. had been out-flanked by Iran since Iran knew we couldn’t/wouldn’t leave troops behind without legal immunity.  Iran worked behind the scenes, as it has been doing all along, to assure that Iraq would not give in on this point.  He also mentioned that the current Administration largely permitted this to happen without much of a fight.  Iran has been involved in the conflict in Iraq all along and virtually everyone knows that.  The IEDs were largely masterminded and manufactured in Iran.  Efforts to keep the religious sects distrusting each other were fomented by Iran.

So, the promise of withdrawing our troops will have been kept, but, by doing so, we may well have sealed the fate of Iraq to being a fully-controlled satellite of Iran for the foreseeable future.  This is a bad scenario given our dependence upon oil from the Middle East.  This is a bad scenario given that our country is about the only defender Israel has (except for Israel itself with an almost certain nuke capability of its own), and Iran has vowed to blow that country away using its nuke weapons capability (nearly developed if not already in place).

Iran is among the most unstable countries on earth at present given the ruling religious group and the seemingly unhinged voice of Ahmadinejad.  Iraq is still not what could be described as a stable country and is unlikely to get any more stable with our presence eliminated.

The Middle East has been an ‘issue’ since I became aware of international relations, and it appears we have gained nothing as the result of the investment of human suffering and money that we’ve made as a country.  Syria is capable of exploding at any point.  Libya is very unsettled even though its former dictator has been killed.  Egypt is not at all stabilized.

We will continue to have a CIA presence; doesn’t it seem as though we have a CIA presence everywhere?  I would be amazed if there were not a CIA presence in every Middle Eastern country whether authorized by the host country or not.  This is a real hot spot and we are almost devoid of any ability to provide support for our friends in the region.  Our money and the blood of our people have not had much of an effect.

Among other things, we’d be wise to begin drilling for oil on our own lands before we get caught in the almost certain petroleum bind that is headed our way.