Why the Surge will push us into a War with Iran

By Mike Whitney

".....Bush’s new “security strategy” does nothing to promote American interests in Iraq; it benefits Iran alone. The “surge” is a tactic not a strategy. It does not consider the overall objectives of US involvement in Iraq, but continues to pursue the narrow aim of eliminating one enemy over another. This is hopelessly counterproductive and will end in disaster. By focusing all of his military resources on defeating the Sunni-led resistance, Bush has made a “devil’s bargain” with the Iranian-backed Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the biggest gangster in all of Baghdad, who is instigating much of the sectarian violence. Al-Hakim spent 20 years in Iran prior to the fall of Saddam and is clearly allied to the Mullahs. His militia, the Badr Brigade, was trained by the Iranian Republican Guards (as well as the CIA) and is perhaps the most feared death squad in all of Iraq. Al-Hakim’s militia operates out of the Iraqi Interior Ministry and is deeply engaged in the purging of Sunnis from Baghdad.......

Also, according to the conservative Jerusalem Post, “The pro-Iranian Mahdi Army is waging a war to eliminate the entire Palestinian population in Iraq…. Palestinian leaders and activists are describing a ‘systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing’. Thousands of Palestinian families have been forced to flee Iraq since the downfall of Saddam Hussein, but have no place to go.” (“Palestinians ‘Ethnic Cleansing” in Iraq”)

The deliberate attack on Iraqi intellectuals and academics has also gone largely unreported in the western media. In a heart-wrenching article by Layla Anwar, “A Stroll Down Haifa Street”, the author details the assault on a university professor, Ahmed Kamal Nabil. Nabil tells how teachers and students have been targeted as “the last line of resistance against political manipulation and terror in the new Iraq. Academics are targeted because they cannot be ideologically controlled…or sucked into the role of mouth piece for the occupation and its puppets…And academics are targeted because the new Iraq has become one big looting field run by mercenaries, thugs, politically corrupt opportunists, sectarian agitators, fanatical dark minds, and barbarians. And they want it to remain that way. They want to make sure that Iraq will never raise its head again. So they drain it of its intellectuals. In the New Iraq, there is no place for knowledge. Knowledge is the enemy.”......

As Brzezinski said, “If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted, bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large.”...."