Iran Meddles in Iraq

By Hugh Hewitt

"Iran's Ambassador in Iraq has announced to the New York Times that his country would be making a big push to become even more deeply involved in the life of Iraq. This declaration of intent should be seen as a danger signal to the governments of Iraq and the United States.

Nothing good comes out of the government of Tehran, and the peoples of Lebanon and Israel know this first hand. To allow Iran to meddle in your affairs is to invite the Revolutionary Guards to arm terrorists and to push a confrontational and extremely violent view of what Islam requires of its believers.

Iran needs to be quarantined, and the sanctions imposed on this rogue regime for pursuing nuclear weapons ought to be intensified. What cannot be allowed to happen is for this deeply criminal regime to pass itself off as just another nation state pursuing an ordinary agenda. Iran is a dangerous and increasingly unstable theocracy, and the world--and especially Iraq--must refuse it every legitimacy."

I pretty much agree with Hugh's assessment here. What I don't understand is did not President Bush and his staff and the Defense Department foresee this development when they were plotting strategies on overthrowing Saddam? In my opinion, it was a given.

I wrote many moons ago when Iran, and specifically "I'Am-A-Nut-Job", first became problematic that I thought we would end up getting heavily involved with Iran. We spent much effort supporting both Iraq and Iran when they were fighting each other because we wanted it to be a draw. We were content to have them knock heads with each other, as long as neither got the upper hand.

We should have known by now that by weakening one, as we did with Iraq in this case, we would have to fend off the other, as we need to do with Iran now. How was this not forseeable? Not only does it appear that this scenario was not given much attention, but we remain tepid and are to slow to react to Iran's meddling.