The War In Iraq Will Be Won in Tehran

Which is of course the enemy's headquarters:

Thus, in a paradoxical way, our mounting success on the battlefield makes political compromise more difficult for Iraqi leaders, because the Iranian gorilla is in the conference room even though he does not appear in the official accounts. And that gorilla is prepared to smash all the furniture if he does not get his way. At the moment, things are going badly for him and his terrorist friends, and the gorilla is doing everything he can to prevent his losses from being institutionalized.

It appears that the Anbar model is spreading to other regions, and involving Shiites as well as Sunnis. Notice, please, that the Anbar pacification involves Sunnis fighting against other Sunnis, and in other areas we have Shiites fighting against other Shiites. This will surprise only those State Department, academic, and CIA “experts” who have so vociferously insisted that conflict in Iraq is invariably ethnic. It will not surprise those who have spent time in Iraq, and noticed the remarkably high rate of intermarriage between these two groups of theoretically irreconcilable enemies. Nor will it surprise the likes of Canon Andrew White, the courageous Anglican who for years has preached ecumenism among all Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Iraq.

Left to their own devices, the Iraqis would undoubtedly have made considerable progress toward national unity, and a representative government worthy of the name. But the Iraqis are not left alone, because the battle that is currently being waged in their country is part of a larger war, in which the most dangerous force is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Until Iran is defeated, Iraqi leaders will always cater to the edicts coming from Tehran.

So when deep thinkers like Senators Lugar, Biden, Reid, Domenici, and Clinton beat up on the Iraqi political class, and cite their failure as the basis for an American retreat, someone should ask them how they intend to deal with Iran, which is the main saboteur of Iraq, and our main enemy. It seems the Iranians already have a veto power over Iraqi parliamentary proceedings. If we leave, their power will grow dramatically.

And then there will be literally hell to pay.

The mistake since day one of the Iraq War has been to treat it as a hermetically sealed little pacification effort whereas it is merely one front in a wider Middle East war. Iran can see Americans in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Rather than force her crumbling military to face us on two fronts, and with the entire U.S. Army on one front, we simply pretend we're not at war, as we've steadfastly done since 1979.

The answer to the question "How many Americans must Tehran murder before America wakes up?" has but one answer, "All of us."