Ted King <lodited@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:lodited-E39639.09451812102005@newsclstr02.news.prodigy.com:

In article <Xns96ED5E11FE036fstone69@213.155.197.138>,
Fred Stone <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote:

chibiabos <chib@nospam.com> wrote in
news:111020051859591020%chib@nospam.com:

In article <Xns96EC9D9BC1DCfstone69@213.155.197.138>, Fred Stone
<fstone69@earthling.com> wrote:

http://hnn.us/articles/5100.html

We're Winning Ugly in the Middle East, but that's Better than
Losing Beautifully
By Judith Apter Klinghoffer

[snip]

[much more at link]

This article is nearly a year and a half old. In a war, where
events change so rapidly, can you really claim any of it is still
relevant?

Could you point out some specific parts of it that are *not* still
relevant, and give reliable first-hand reports of the actual state of
affairs on the ground that contradict that article?

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1093747,00.html

[quote]

Since the start of the insurgency in Iraq, the most persistent danger
to U.S. troops has come from the Sunni Arab insurgents and terrorists
who roam the center and west of the country. But some U.S. officials
are worried about a potentially greater challenge to order in Iraq and
U.S. interests there: the growing influence of Iran. With an elected
Shi'ite-dominated government in place in Baghdad and the U.S.
preoccupied with quelling the Sunni-led insurgency, the Iranian regime
has deepened its imprint on the political and social fabric of Iraq,
buying influence in the new Iraqi government, running
intelligence-gathering networks and funneling money and guns to
Shi'ite militant groups--all with the aim of fostering a Shi'ite-run
state friendly to Iran. In parts of southern Iraq, fundamentalist
Shi'ite militias--some of them funded and armed by Iran--have imposed
restrictions on the daily lives of Iraqis, banning alcohol and curbing
the rights of women. Iraq's Shi'ite leaders, including Prime Minister
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, have tried to forge a strategic alliance with
Tehran, even seeking to have Iranians recognized as a minority group
under Iraq's proposed constitution.

This last is not necessarily a bad thing. They *are* neighbors, and
neither country would benefit from outright warfare.

"We have to think anything we tell
or share with the Iraqi government ends up in Tehran," says a Western
diplomat.

And the Shi'ite radicals are not gaining favor among the people whom
they are oppressing. There have been counter-demonstrations and they
have attracted the attention of US and Iraqi government forces to
suppress the Shi'ite militia groups in southern Iraq. Mookie al-Sadr is
*not* terribly popular with the Shi'ite leadership in Iraq.

Perhaps most troubling are signs that the rising influence of Iran--a
country with which Iraq waged an eight-year war and whose brand of
theocracy most Iraqis reject--is exacerbating sectarian tensions
between Sunnis and Shi'ites, pulling Iraq closer to all-out civil war.
And while top intelligence officials have sought to play down any
state-sponsored role by Tehran's regime in directing violence against
the coalition, the emergence of al-Sheibani has cast greater suspicion
on Iran. Coalition sources told TIME that it was one of al-Sheibani's
devices that killed three British soldiers in Amarah last month. "One
suspects this would have to have a higher degree of approval [in
Tehran]," says a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad. The
official says the U.S. believes that Iran has brokered a partnership
between Iraqi Shi'ite militants and Hizballah and facilitated the
import of sophisticated weapons that are killing and wounding U.S. and
British troops. "It is true that weapons clearly, unambiguously, from
Iran have been found in Iraq," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said
last week.

There have been increasingly stronger statements against Iranian
influence and involvement in Iraq, coming from both Iraqi Shi'ite
leaders and British and US Coalition leaders.

Iran's mullahcracy is not exactly enjoying the support of the Iranian
people.

[unquote]

There is a real possibility of a full blown civil war in Iraq - one
which could potentially spread to a wider conflict between Sunni and
Shia Moslems. If either of those things happen it would certainly
bring into question whether or not any possible salutary effects of
democratization were worth such a consequence and could easily put the
kabosh on most, if not, democratization. Of course, I hope that that
doesn't happen, but I don't think it is realistic to say it isn't a
very real possibility:

Of course it's a possibility. Whether it's a high *probability* is
debatable.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-09-22-saudi-warning-iraq_x.htm

[quote]

Iraq is moving toward disintegration, and war there could spread to
its neighbors, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said Thursday.

In part because of a new constitution that would give more power to
various regions in Iraq, "there seems to be no dynamic that is pulling
the country together," Saud said. Iraqis are to vote on the
constitution next month. Sunni Arab leaders are urging a "no" vote,
while majority Shiites urge approval.

"All the dynamics there are pushing people away from each other," said
Saud, whose nation is predominantly Sunni.

Saud is one of the ones doing the pushing, so he should know.

The main problem, Saud told a small group of reporters here, is the
split between Sunnis and Shiites in central and southern Iraq.
Continued autonomy for non-Arab Kurds in northern Iraq is less of a
concern, he said.

He's playing for a western audience, too. He knows as well as any Iraqi
that there are considerable family ties between Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq.
The tensions are between a small faction of radical Salafist Sunnis and
the majority.

"If things go the way they are ... there will be a struggle among the
three for natural resources," Saud said, and Iraq's neighbors will be
drawn into a wider war.

That is a big part of the negotiated division of resources in the
constitution.

He said Iran, a predominantly Shiite but non-Arab nation, would
intervene on the side of Iraqi Shiites. Turkey, which has a big
Kurdish minority, has repeatedly threatened to enter northern Iraq if
Kurds there declare independence. If Iraq's Sunni Arab minority
appears to lose out, "I don't see how the Arab countries will be left
out of the conflict in one way or another."

Iran is having its own internal problems as a result of the progress
that that is seen in Iraq by Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims to the Iraqi holy
places like Najaf.