It is this reporter's opinion that it is time to ask what lies ahead in the Middle East.
We have in past opinions discussed the various tribes, religions, and cultures that make up Iraq, and evidence shows that Iraq is not one country but three different entities, each at war with one another.
The Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shiites have all been fighting each other for 1,000 years. With the United States in the mix, there are problems in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Now comes word that the Bush-Cheney cabal is apparently planning a war with Iran.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to the U.N. General Assembly hardly put forth the possibility of even talking with him or his associates who hold the power in Iran. Ahmadinejad has little power in Iran’s theocracy. The real power rests in the hands of supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Everything from media to intelligence, armed forces and parliament is in his hands.
Other powers are in the hands of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Apparently Khamenei and Rafsanjani are worried about the behavior of Ahmadinejad and those voices calling for the bombing of Iran’s two dozen widely scattered underground nuclear facilities.
They are concerned with another pre-emptive war and provocative action now being quietly discussed by the Bush administration. And in the words of the enemy, Washington remains bull-headed, obsessive, inflexible, and unwilling to cast aside hubris, imperialism, and hegemony.
An attack on Iran would bring unification regardless of Iran’s leadership. Iran could mount a million men under arms on the ground. We have about 150,000 soldiers in the Middle East.
The first thing that would happen would be the closing of the Straits of Hormuz and oil would immediately jump to $150 or $200 per barrel … reason enough to seriously consider another pre-emptive war.
Little heard these days, but a genius when he comes to the Middle East, is the former CentCom commander Gen. John Abizaid who speaks fluent Arabic and knows Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and the rest of the Middle East like the back of his hand.
Abizaid is a realist who believes we can stop Iranian expansion but that first we have got to understand that we are dealing with multiple factions. He tells us, as we already know, that the war and its aftermath in Iraq has not worked. The general warns that bombing Iran would be catastrophic, would set the entire Middle East ablaze, and bring millions more recruits to al-Qaida’s anti U.S. forces.
Abizaid says we can stop Iranian expansion — that we contained the Soviet Union with tens of thousands of nuclear warheads in missiles targeted against the United States. However, we continued talking to the Soviet leaders throughout the worst of the Cold War and we blocked Soviet expansionism. The general also reminds us that we have learned to live with China through Nixon’s diplomatic relations.
He says it is now time for the United States to deliver clear messages. It is time to tell the Iranians that a couple of Iranian nukes will not unravel us. That if Iran was stupid enough to fire them, Ahmadinejad’s nation would be instantly vaporized.
The Iranian ayatollahs are heirs to a great civilization and they are not in the business of collective suicide. Using suicide bombers against the West is one thing, but committing national suicide is quite another. They are not mad. The general suggests we talk with Iran at the highest level as soon as possible.
Abizaid cites four major challenges with global dimensions:
Sunni, al-Qaida, and lethal global extremism
The rise of Shia extremist power
The continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The necessity for the global economy to continue to rely on mideast oil
The general tells us that the Islamists, not unlike Hitler’s Nazis before them, have published their credo. But Hitler’s "Mein Kampf" was largely ignored when first published in 1925.
Abizaid says we too have carefully studied the pronouncements that have come from Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayam al-Zawahri. They threaten the complete extermination of Israel and the United States.
Ahmadinejad now warns that a power vacuum is imminent in Iraq. And that Iran is ready to fill the gap. Calling us the “occupiers,” he asserts our political power is collapsing rapidly. And he calls on his Middle East neighbors to help fill the gap.
Despite our starry-eyed vision of a democratic Iraq, let’s face it; neither Iraq nor any of its neighbors will ever be candidates for participatory democracy. They just aren’t built that way.
History has shown that without a tyrannical government suppressing them, the population which goes off in multiple directions all at once, is simply ungovernable. Saddam Hussein understood well that Iraq is not one nation. He maintained control by torturing, imprisoning, and killing those he saw as threats to Iraq’s stability. Mass graves serve as silent testimony to his despicable tyranny.
How do we proceed with the absurd idea that we can restore sanity to the Middle Eastern nuthouse? There are three possibilities for the future of Iraq:
We leave, and Iraq explodes into a violent civil war.
We stay indefinitely to prevent such an explosion.
An iron-fisted authoritarian government could replace the present chaos (most probable of the three scenarios).
Somewhere in the Middle East there will develop a secular-minded general or colonel with ambitions and talents, a commander of all the people — “the man on the white horse.”
But for now, we continue to face a dismal situation.
© 2007 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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