the following article (long) provides an incredible understanding of how the neo-cons so badly miscalculated in Iraq and how that probably caused them to already fail in Iran ... this is one of the best articles i've ever read on the subject ... it's really worth taking the time to read it if you want to truly understand the geo-politics surrounding the war ...
source:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0810-20.htmIn 1998, neo-conservative theorist Robert Kagan enunciated what would become a foundational belief of Bush Administration policy. He asserted that "a successful intervention in Iraq would revolutionize the strategic situation in the Middle East, in ways both tangible and intangible, and all to the benefit of American interests."
Now, over two years after Baghdad fell and the American occupation of Iraq began, Kagan's prediction appears to have been fulfilled -- in reverse. The chief beneficiary of the occupation and the chaos it produced has not been the Bush administration, but Iran, the most populous and powerful member of the "Axis of Evil," and the chief American competitor for dominance in the oil-rich region. As diplomatic historian Gabriel Kolko commented: "By destroying a united Iraq under
Hussein…the U.S. removed the main barrier to Iran's eventual triumph." <skip>
Two developments ended this brief moment of seeming triumph for Washington. As a start, American officials, feeling their oats, balked at the tentative terms negotiated by the Europeans because they did not involve regime change in Iran. This hard-line American stance gave the Iranian leadership no room to maneuver and stiffened their negotiating posture. <skip>
A second key development neutralized the American ability to turn its military might in an Iranian direction: the rise of the Iraqi resistance. During the several months after the fall of Baghdad, the Saddamist loyalists who had initially resisted the U.S. occupation were augmented by a broader and more resilient insurgency. As the character of the occupation made itself known, small groups of guerrillas began defending their neighborhoods from U.S. military patrols. These patrols were seeking out suspected "regime loyalists" from the Baathist era by knocking down doors, shooting whomever resisted, and arresting all men of "military age" in the household. As the resistance spread, its various factions became more aggressive and resourceful. Over the next year, it blossomed into a formidable and complex enemy that the U.S. Army -- to the surprise of American officials in Washington and Baghdad -- did not have the resources to defeat. It was, then, the swiftly growing Iraqi resistance that, by preventing the consolidation of an American Iraq, forced an Iranian campaign off the table and back into the shadows where it has remained to this day.
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