Djelloul Marbrook

The profiteers, the apocalyptos, the chicken hawks, they all wanted to go into Iraq without a thought to the most obvious fact of all—we would be magnifying Iran’s influence in the region tenfold while our policy was to contain it.

It was obvious to the majority of Arabs, most of whom are Sunnis. It was obvious to Sunni Turkey, obvious to Sunni Al Qaeda, and, most important of all, it was obvious to Iraq’s oppressed Shia majority. Once freed of Saddam Hussein’s murderous Sunni rule, they would inexorably seek Iran’s embrace.

Why wasn’t this obvious to the big brains in Washington? Perhaps they didn’t care. Profiteers would profit, the military-industrial complex would justify itself, the generals would get their promotions, the apocalyptos would move the Rapture up on the calendar, the Israel lobby would then be able to target Iran, now its most vociferous enemy, and the chicken hawks would scare us into a security state.

What the invasion has done is reverse more than 1,300 years of history. Since 641, when the newly Muslim Arabs toppled the Iranian Sassanian empire (Sassanian castle, inset), the region had been dominated by Sunni Islam. Once the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates expired, the Sunni Turks ruled the area until the 20th Century.

Our meddling reverses all this, hands Iraq over to the Shias, sets the stage for Iranian imperialism, and very likely ignites a conflict between Iran and the Sunni Arabs of the Middle East. More arms sales, more meddling, more room for apocalyptic thinking and bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.

To Arabs with a sense of history this period might seem something like an Abbasid restoration in which Arabs under Iranian auspices overthrow the Umayyads, who represented milennia of tribal Arab culture and perspective.

Almost everybody but the Sunnis get what they want, except people of good will who value common sense and moderation. Greed and extremism triumph. Even Al Qaeda wins. What a grand victory. Mission accomplished. Heckuva job,

—DM