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Is it just me, or has everyone completely forgotten that our current problems with Iran are a direct result of Iraq's invasion? "Axis of Evil," not withstanding, we had fairly agreeable relations with Iran for a solid number of years prior to 2005. The President back then, Khatami, was far from a hardliner--a self-proclaimed "reformer," he co-operated with and spoke at the United Nations, expressed his belief that the Holocaust ocurred, and even diplomatically ackowledged Israel on one controversial occasion. We were never popular with the Iranian clergy or their fanatical supporters, but much like Pakistan's current leader, he managed to prevent anger at the West from reaching a boiling point, even after 9/11.
Fast forward to 2005, 2 years after the US invaded Iraq (both former enemies of Iran) on shaky pretenses of liberation and WMDs. Khatami is at the end of his 2-term reign. His predecessor, another moderate named Rafsanjani runs again and nearly wins--until Ahmadinejad, the populist mayor of Tehran, unexpectedly forces a run-off election, which he wins handily. And guess why this happened? Because as the ONLY candidate who spoke out openly against friendly relations with the United States (according to my sources), the anti-West hardliner was able to utilize mounting hatred and suspicion of the US within the Middle East to his advantage. If it hadn't been for the Iraq invasion, it is more than likely that Ahmadinejad, who was never taken seriously as a viable candidate until the year of the election, would never have caused the run-off in the first place, much less won.
So now, Iran's politics are dictated by a hardliner in bed with the most fanatical of the Iranian clergy, a man who says Israel should be "wiped off the map," that the UN hates Islam, that Americans see themselves as modern-day crusaders, sand so forth. Many even say he's responsible for some of the current violence in Iraq and Israel, and some of our own presidential candidates (Edwards, Clark) are suggesting the steps we take should be more than just diplomatic gestures. I haven't completely made up my mind yet (Ahmadinejad scares me, but so does launching another war while we're still bogged down in our last misadventure) but here's one thing I DO know:
This is EXACTLY what opponents of the Iraq invasion said would happen. Hell, this is exactly what _I_ knew would happen. The Middle East has reacted to Bush's horrendous catastrophe of a war with unchecked animosity, and as a direct result we now have at least one more fanatic to worry about, a man many times more dangerous than Saddam and his non-existent Weapons of Mass Distruction. And amazingly, Bush is trying to pretend that relations with Iraq and Iran soured independently, when really, one conflict was produced directly by the other! Someday historians may correctly pin the blame on Bush for stepping up diplomatic tensions with Iran, and credit us liberals with being dead-on accurate as neo-cons ridiculed our dire warnings about destabilizing the entire region. But As far as I can tell, no one in the mainstream is currently giving credit where credit is due.
How much you want to bet, when the quagmire spreads to Iran, the White House will tell us to "stop playing the blame game"?
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