Mega Iran

Megan K. Stack and Borzou Daragahi take a look at who's winning in Iraq in today's LA Times and come to the conclusion that the ultimate winner will be Iran and the Middle East's Shia population. From the LA Times:

The Islamic government in neighboring Iran watched with trepidation in March 2003 when U.S.-led troops stormed Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime and start remaking the political map of the Mideast.

In retrospect, the Islamic Republic could have celebrated: The war has left America's longtime nemesis with profound influence in the new Iraq and pushed it to the apex of power in the region.

Emboldened by its new status and shielded by deep oil reserves, Tehran is pressing ahead with its nuclear program, daring the international community to impose sanctions. Iran is a Shiite Muslim nation with an ethnic Persian majority, and the blossoming of its influence has fueled the ambitions of long-repressed Shiites throughout the Arab world.

I had always thought this would be the end result in Iraq and the reason why a civil war will probably happen. The Sunni leaders of the Western countries of the Middle East see the writing on the wall and are probably helping to foment the Iraqi insurgency. Also from The Times:

When Jordan's King Abdullah II warned a year ago with uncharacteristic bluntness that the emergence of a new government in Iraq could create a "Shiite crescent," Shiites in Iraq reacted angrily and Jordanian officials insisted the king had been misunderstood.

But many analysts believe he meant exactly what he said: that a fortified Iranian influence now stretches throughout Iraq, through the Kurdistan region into Turkey, to an ever weaker Syria and down into Lebanon's Hezbollah-dominated south, on Israel's border. Iran's hand also stretches into the heart of the Arabian peninsula through Shiite communities scattered in the Persian Gulf countries.

and

"We fought a war together to keep Iran from occupying Iraq. . . . Now we are handing the whole country over to Iran without reason," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York last year.

The worst part of all of this is that as we continue to "stay the course" in Iraq by fighting the insurgency, we are in fact, spending billions of dollars fighting to help out our probable end game enemies, which only makes sense if your long term goals are to spend billions more to provide a security blanket for the Saudis and other pro-US governments in the region. I doubt that was our plan, but it's where we're stuck now.