Should've Holed Up in Australia Instead

Matt Yglesias points to this KnightRidder account suggesting that Iran seems to have emerged holding the strategic spoils of the Iraq war:

The logic of Iran's ascendance is simple. Iran sat back as the United States launched expensive wars and defeated Iranian enemies on two of its borders, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran's population is predominantly Shiite Muslim, and with Iraq's Shiite majority certain to dominate any new Iraqi government, the two nations will share cultural and religious ties that will likely bringing the formerly warring neighbors closer.

Senior U.S. officials in Washington fear that a Shiite uprising in Iraq could trigger unrest in neighboring Kuwait, where Shiites are 30 percent of the population; in Bahrain, which is 70 percent Shiite, and in the oil-rich eastern province of Saudi Arabia, where Shiites are a narrow majority.

Iranians, who succeeded in exporting their Islamic revolution to Shiite parts of Lebanon after Israel invaded that country in 1982, believe they've now played their cards well as America stumbled into a guerrilla war in Iraq.

In this week's New Yorker Seymour Hersh explains that it gets even more complicated than that:

Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in Israel’s view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war. The Israeli operatives include members of the Mossad, Israel’s clandestine foreign-intelligence service, who work undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry Israeli passports.

Yikes. The Kurds are seriously agitating about the prospect of a Shiite majority government—which Iran is promoting. Iran, Turkey, and Syria don't want to see Kurdistan emerge—which Israel is urging. Sometimes I hope that I'm just reading about the world's worst game of RISK, and I'll wake up soon with a solidly fortified position in Brazil, which everyone knows is the key to holding both South America and Africa and the road to victory, and a vast array of tanks/Roman numeral 10s at my disposal, because everyone knows you don't fight a land war in Asia, and the whole Middle East is only one territory anyway.

While we're talking about this stuff at the Stratego level, it's unequivocally good news that the Iraqis seem to approve of the new government framework, with "support spanning ethnic and religious groups." Who'd of thought—the transitional authority figures haven't been slurred as US stooges. There may be a good honeymoon in this transition. The countervailing opinion, of course, can be found in the unimpeded insurgent attacks, like the coordinated display yesterday that killed 100 Iraqis. If that trend continues unabated, I bet the honeymoon sours quickly. We're going to at least need some lucky dice.

Posted by Kriston at June 25, 2004 3:46 PM