The Empire Falls Over Its Own Idiocy

Does anybody find it disturbing that a high ranking official from Iran is visiting Iraq?

I know Americans don’t know or understand anything about the Middle East, or their own country for that matter, but it should be clear to everybody by now that nationalism is not a traditional cohesive force in Middle Eastern culture. The national borders of the modern Middle East were drawn up by Western powers at the end of World War I for colonial purposes. The irony here is that a form of Middle Eastern nationalism was created by the Balfour Agreement and the Treaty of Sevres in those affected countries when they finally overthrew their colonial masters – France and Britain (including Iraq. Of course the Palestinians are still under Israeli occupation). So, here we have our new 51st state – Iraq – and yet there still is no traditional nationalist spirit that binds the country together. It is still dominated by ethnic and religious ties. In fact, even the nationalism that does exist is built up from the Muslim faith regardless of the extremity.

Here is my point about Iran. They are dominated by Shiite clerics who rule a theocracy. Iraq’s new political majority is the Shiites, who will naturally gravitate toward their Shiite brothers in Iran, more so than their Sunni country men next door, regardless of fundamental differences in political structures (the Iraq Shiite clerics do not want an Iran style theocracy -- or at least we hope they don't). Meanwhile, we are sowing the new seeds of our own future destruction.

We are pressuring Iran on their nuclear ambitions and will use military action to stop it, or will support military action by Israel to stop it. At the same time, we are arming and training thousands of Shiites in Iraq to fight a vicious Sunni insurgency that we created. It is my belief that it will inevitably lead to full out civil war like in Lebanon during the 1980s. The difference is that the United States will be in the middle of all these warring factions of which none will have any incentive to work with us. The more we press Iran on other matters, the closer we press our current Shiite “allies” in Iraq toward our current Shiite “enemies” in Iran. When they turn on us, they will start killing us with our own weapons and training – just like Osama Bin Laden. Remember him?