IRAN TOOK ADVANTAGE OF TIME IN THE SHADOWS TO BUILD POWER

By Georgie Anne Geyer Wed Aug 10, 7:02 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- It is grossly unfair that crises always seem to arise 
in these "dog days" (with apologies to my cat, Nikko) of August. 

[...]

Then the dangerous subtext:

While America has been so dangerously and wastefully tied down in
Iraq, Iran has been moving to form the diplomatic, political and
military imprint of a kind of "Shiite Internationale" among the
region's Shia populations. This would take in all the followers of 
the Shia sect of Islam, from the 60 percent of Iraq, to the oil-rich
eastern regions of Saudi Arabia, to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah
guerrilla/political control of Lebanon.

Two of our most sagacious analysts of the area, Larry Johnson and
Patrick Lang, both with years of apt experience in these areas, sent
out an e-mail to their colleagues this week outlining the situation.
It read:

"Iran, if things continue to go its way, finds itself on the threshold
of controlling vast oil resources that stretch from the Persian Gulf
to the Mediterranean ... Iran is well on its way to achieving de facto
control of significant portions of Iraq. Teheran is backing Shia
cleric the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (a Persian, not an Arab) and
the radical Muqtada al-Sadr. The Iranians are funneling money and
training to supporters inside Iraq. The Iraqi Shia control the
political process and comprise the majority of the security forces ...
Iran is in a dominant position in Lebanon. The murder earlier this
year of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has left Lebanon under
the de facto military guard of Hezbollah. Iran remains the main
benefactor, supporter and adviser to Hezbollah ..."

In fact, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went out of his way this
week to accuse Iran of, at the very least, allowing weapons,
especially deadly IEDs, or "improvised explosive devices," to be
exported to insurgents in Iraq.

The odd thing is that Iran, not Iraq, was always the primary target of
the neocon group that so distorted American policy after 9/11, in part
because Iran was seen as the primary enemy of Israel; but Iraq seemed
easier to them.

Thus, the Iranians were able to simply stand back while their
archenemy, Saddam, fell at the Americans' hands and at no cost to
themselves. Should it be any surprise that they should move, as
ruthlessly as always, to achieve their goals? And now, with their
exalted idea of themselves as the holiest of Shia, their goals have
been perfectly complemented by the "Great Satan." (That's us.)

[...]

Full article at Yahoo News...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucgg/20050810/cm_ucgg/
irantookadvantageoftimeintheshadowstobuildpower

Cheers, Steve...

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