re: #764 drcordell

We funded and armed both sides. That seems pretty equivalent to just doing nothing, doesn’t it? And I hate to break it to you, but Iran now does dominate the region. We crowned them when we overthrew Saddam Hussein and ousted a Sunni dictator who ruled a majority Shia nation whose natural ally in the region is Iran.

No, we supported both sides, unequally, to the extent that they wore each other down. The border remained unchanged and their influence in the Gulf waned. If we had left them alone, Iran would have won and conquered greater control of the Persian Gulf.

Iran does not yet dominate the region today, although Obama does seem intent on making that a reality. Meanwhile, it seems Iraqi democracy is having a far greater damaging effect on the Iranian theocracy than the reverse. Sistani is now the preeminent Shia cleric in the world, even among Iranians. The Iranian regime is collapsing as Sistani’s quietist school is gaining on the Khomeneists.

You haven’t put forward an alternative strategy the US should have perused in the region. But you have argued the US was wrong in all it did. So let’s look at the region, as you seem to think it should have been: The USSR still intact & in control of Afghanistan, & the Iranians in control of the Persian Gulf since the late 1980’s… oh, yeah, that would have been way better!