Iran is the Big Winner in the War on Terror

IsrAmeriPrius · Aug 24, 2006

A good case can be made for the idea that the biggest winner in the war on terror so far is Iran.

Consider the scorecard, so far:

1) The Taliban has been thrown out of power in Afghanistan. An ultra-Orthodox Sunni movement, the Taliban was extremely hostile to the Shia Iranian regime, which it considered heretical and attempted to destabilize.

2) Saddam Hussein and the Baathists have been ousted from power in Iraq. This is a triple win for Iran:
- Saddam had led his country into a bloody eight year-long war of aggression against Iran, and the latter was forced to desperate efforts to stave off defeat.
- The Baath Party is a secular, quasi-socialist Arab nationalist movement, and thus on all three points very hostile to the religiously conservative, essentially capitalist and distinctly non-Arab Iranians.
- The new government in Iraq is likely to be dominated by the country's Shia majority, and thus a natural ally of Iran.

3) Already overstretched, the US is unlikely to intervene against Iran or Iranian interests.

StrategyPage.com[/b]
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IRAN has been the main winner of the West's war on terror, an influential foreign policy think tank concluded today.

London's Chatham House - one of the world's leading experts on international affairs - said the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan had boosted Iran's power.

Eliminating Saddam Hussein and the Taliban had taken out Iran's main regional rivals.

Now Iran had filled the hole, leaving the West with a major problem, as illustrated by the country's nuclear ambitions and the recent fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

The Chatham House report goes on to say: "There is little doubt that Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the Middle East."

Scotsman[/b]
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The report warned: "There is little doubt that Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the Middle East. The US, with coalition support, has eliminated two of Iran's rival governments but has failed to replace either with stable political structures."

The verdict of respected think-tank Chatham House is an embarrassing blow to President Bush and Tony Blair.

It is highly critical of US meddling in the Middle East and said instability in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Israel's failure to defeat Hizbollah, had strengthened Iran's standing under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. One of the report's authors, Dr Ali Ansari, of St Andrews University, said yesterday: "The United States needs to take a step back and reassess its entire policy towards Iran.

Mirror.co.uk[/b]
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Iran is the Big Winner in the War on Terror

IsrAmeriPrius Progressive Member

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Iran is the Big Winner in the War on Terror

IsrAmeriPrius Progressive Member