American Failure Strengthens Iranian Influence in Iraq

The American Secretary of Defense accused Iran’s Revolutionary Guard of infiltrating Iraq to undertake destructive activities that are damaging to the future of the country. The purpose of these attacks is to emphasize this: that control by American occupation forces is breaking down. This is to Iran’s advantage, proving again that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is, in essence, a disaster.

Just as it is a disaster for Iraq, where the State was destroyed, leaving everything in its society threatened and on the brink of collapse, it is for America, who destroyed the Iraqi State – to the advantage of Iran and Israel – while she [America] is up to her ears in Iraqi blood and the blood of her sons, and in the deluge of costs that are inflating the American budget deficit to record levels.

If the Americans, as a way to punish Sunni regions that harbor the body of resistance to the occupation, looked the other way and allowed forged voting cards brought in from Iran to tarnish the Iraqi elections, then the American occupation authorities strengthened Iranian interference in Iraq’s affairs. Similarly, it was the occupation authorities that destroyed the Iraqi State and its system, leaving the borders of this large Arab country open to any terrorist, and every Tom, Dick, and Harry from nations hostile to Iraq.

Likewise, from the beginning, the American occupation authorities based the foundation of the new Iraqi state on ethnicity and sectarianism, rather than on just citizenship – and this is the major reason for the terrible rise in sectarian tensions that is being nurtured by States hostile to Iraq, its unity and its strength.

In short, the United States is now reaping the bitter fruit of its strategic error of invading, occupying and destroying the Iraqi state. The attempt to rebuild it along corrupt, sectarian and ethnic foundations will lead to nothing but ethnic and sectarian tension, and continuing destruction and foreign interference in this ill-fated Arab country.