Justin Raimondo weighs in on the mystery of Iran benefiting from the situation in Iraq, and how that perhaps happened. It’s along the same lines as my musings here but with the advantage of making much more sense and having lots of supporting links. Personally, I have no problem believing the Iranians could outfox US and Israeli intelligence. Heck, that’s probably one reason why the Israelis complain so bitterly about Iran hiding their supposed nuclear weapons program — the Iranians showed them up and they just can’t stand it. Now we have to listen to the Israelis and neocons whine nonstop about the sneaky Iranians.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. The original plan of the neocons was to install Ahmed Chalabi, their own personal Iraqi puppet, but that soon fell through – and Chalabi, it turned out, had strong links to Iranian intelligence agencies. Accused of divulging American secrets to Tehran, Chalabi had his Iraq headquarters raided by Iraqi and U.S. personnel. Unfortunately, the horse was already out of the barn.
… When Chalabi’s shenanigans were exposed to the light of day, and his extensive interactions with the Iranians were revealed, a theory was floated by several in the intelligence community that we were basically suckered into the Iraq war by its chief beneficiaries, the Iranians. Using their chief asset, the double agent Chalabi, they and their neocon allies fed us ersatz “intelligence” via the various Iraqi “defectors” rounded up by the Iraqi National Congress and paraded across the front page of the New York Times by Judith Miller and her editors.
…The consolidation of a strong Iraqi state is the last thing the Americans want, for that would threaten their occupation and lead to their swift exit from the country. It is also in the Iranian interest to keep Iraq divided and stop the nationalist Sadr and his brutal militia from taking power in Baghdad. And, as Robert Parry points out, another factor played a key role in tricking us into war:
“Israeli governments have long made a high priority out of forging alliances with countries like Iran on the periphery of the Arab world to divert Arab antipathy that otherwise could be concentrated on Israel. Plus, Israel and Iran had an important enemy in common: Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Both Israel and Iran had a lot to gain by convincing the United States to remove their hated adversary.”
Find many links in the original piece at Antiwar.com. Still, how this all plays out is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the Iranians have proven themselves very smart, but that doesn’t mean they won’t have to grovel at least a little. Maybe they bruised some egos, and they will have to assuage them before we move on to some arrangement of grudging respect.
Think George Steinbrenner and the Yankees. He could afford the best talent, and he bought it. The fact that everyone hates the Yankees was simply beside the point because the Yankees won. I think this is how the US and Israeli power brokers view themselves, and a smart country like Iran needs to be brought into the fold - no question. If not they’ll work for Russia. Now whether the US and Israel can still pull this off…that is another thing entirely. And that power instability, I think, is what makes the situation so perilous. It’s not a done deal, not by any stretch.
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