THE IRANIAN ANGLE:
Andrew Sullivan
Here's a fascinating nugget from Edward Wong's latest report from Karbala:
After American soldiers occupied the Mukhaiyam Mosque, an insurgent stronghold, on May 12, they found some identification cards that an Iraqi interpreter said were Iranian. The military was still examining the cards and other documents found in the mosque to determine their origins, said Captain Noel Gorospe, a spokesman for the First Armored Division. "We're doing our very best to intercept those people," General Hertling said of outside fighters.
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It seems pretty obvious to me that the insurgency in Iraq is composed of Sunni dead-enders and Shiite radicals, but also an array of enterprising terrorists, as well as Iranian-backed thugs and trouble-makers. What we have, in fact, is a regional war, in which many pro-terror and pro-Islamist and pro-autocracy elements are determined to prevent a democratic transition in Iraq.
This alliance is both active (Iran) and passive (Jordan).
America's favorite autocrat, King Abdullah of Jordan, after all, is rightly afraid of Iraqi democracy. (I mean, who elected him?) And all of that points to one simple conclusion: this war is just beginning. The Arab establishment was not too fazed by the removal of Saddam. (He wasn't too popular with his neighbors, either.) But they're terrified of Iraqis actually determining their own future. And they will do everything and anything they can to stop it. That means that the terror attacks will continue for years. They are now directed at the infidel; but they will soon be directed more squarely at any elected Baghdad government. Do we have the stomach to hang in there if a future Baghdad government asks us to? That's the question. |
