This is going to leave a mark...

I cannot express how painful it is for me to write this post…

However, I do need to post it.

For weeks now, I have heard the speeches by Obama and Clinton about the “cost of the war” and the effect it is having on the average American. Obama rants about the $10 billion a month bill out of Iraq, and demands $10 billion to rebuild America. Clinton babbles on and on about the “lies” told by the Bush White House to the American people, and how all (including, presumably, herself and 271 other Democratic Legislators) of us were taken in by them.

Without defending either of them, I am the first to admit that I think there were mistakes made, lies told, and bad policy implemented against good counsel. In 2002, Bush’s chief economic advisor, Larry Lindsey, estimated the cost of the war in Iraq (if it were to be launched) to run an historically “average” 1 to 2% of GDP… or about $100 billion a year. This was FAR too big an estimate, so he was fired, and the new replacement “team player” came up with a figure “no higher” than $50 billion over the entire course of the conflict… 24 months. Rummy even went so far as to refer to Mr. Lindsey’s estimate as “pure baloney”… doubt me? Here’s the link. Rummy’s “promise” that Iraq could shoulder the cost of its own rebuilding once the oil started flowing was also a flat-out lie… he knew they couldn’t depend on Iraqi interests to handle that much money without direct American oversight, which translated to Americans funding the rebuilding on Iraqi promissory notes.

None the less, this isn’t a “bash Rummy” post, as much as I’d like it to be. No, this is a post about the cost of the war in Iraq to America.

Since posting my response to Ryan’s question of what would President Titus have done differently had he been in the White House from 2001 to 2009, I have been mulling over and over the question of Iran vs. Iraq. There is still no question in my mind that Iran posed the greater threat to American interests and security, but does that mean that our efforts and resources would have been better spent bringing down the Iranian regime than it was the Iraqi?

Here are my conclusions:

Iran has, for at least the last 270 years, been a hot-bed of Shi’ite fundamentalism. From 1921, when Reza Shah gained control of Iran via the British, until the over-throw of his son, Mohammed Reza Shah in 1979 by fundamentalist radicals, Iran had a short and very violent and repressive stint of secularism… molded mainly by Reza Shah’s fascination with Hitler’s Germany in the 1930’s. Outside of that 58 year gap, there is uninterrupted control by fundamentalist Islamic clerics and caliphates who ruled all aspects of Iranian life, both spiritual and secular. Iran also has a “national” or ethnic history that goes back as far as 2,700 years, to the very reigns of Darius and Xerxes themselves. This kind of national identity is a powerful aspect of the nationalistic pride that is so much a part of Iranian foreign policy today… even the current regime in Tehran has referred to Iran as the “Rome” of the Middle East. It’s not for wrong, either… more than 90% of Iranians alive today would understand what a Persian of 1500 years ago was saying (although none could read it). That’s a lot of national continuity, if you ask me.

Iraq, on the other hand, had no national identity prior to 1926, when the British formed the nation from the three former Ottoman provinces of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul. The makeup of the population varied from province to province, with three general groupings: Arabs, Kurds, and Turks… all speaking different languages. The Arabs were further divided into the Muslim sects of Sunni and Shi’a beliefs, while the Kurds followed the sect of Shafi Islam, which is far less restrictive in its makeup than either Sunni or Shi’a Islam. Since Iraq’s “construction” as a nation, it has only known secular rule, with the government having no say in religious matters… even under the rule of such a tyrant as Saddam Hussein. A far more loosely knit and secular state than Iran.

As I have stated so many times within this forum, Iraq had suffered a crushing military defeat at the hands of the Coalition in 1991, and had been allowed no opportunity to rebuild its military in the intervening 12 years from the invasion date. It’s air forces were a laughable joke, its tank corps were less than 50% of their pre-91 levels (and much reduced in capacity, too), and more than 70% of its manpower was called up on 2 year conscription duties, meaning very few of the average “Ahmeds” in the ranks had any measurable military experience below NCO rank. The Gulf War showed us the capabilities of the Iraqi Army under Saddam’s rule… and no one ever doubted that it was even less capable by 2003, not even me.

Iran had not had field-theater operations since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. Thus, its military has remained a potent force in the region, with estimated numbers of 550,000 regular armed forces personnel and as many as 1,000,000 trained regional militias (“Basij”). They sail 6 Kilo-class attack submarines, 14 frigates and corvettes, but the real dangerous boats are the missile-patrol boats… 150+ ft in length and carrying the naval version of the Chinese Silkworm missile, which can hit targets as far as 120 km away with 140 lbs of armor-piercing high explosives, the Iranians have more than 2500 of these missiles from the Chinese, plus what ever reverse-engineering can give them domestically. They have as many as 1800 Zulfiquar-3 MBTs in the Army (a combination of technology from the T-72 Soviet tank and the American M-60) and fly about 200 various makes and models of fighter-bomber and fighter-interceptor aircraft. Now, I am in NO WAY suggesting that Iran could contend against the US military AT ALL… I am simply saying that Iran has a functioning military… far more so than Iraq had in 2003.

A functional representative government in Baghdad could, very well, reduce Iran’s ability to influence the geo-political reality of the entire region… quite easily, in fact. Iraq’s oil export industry is mainly geared to move oil in a “westerly” direction (except, of course, for the Persian Gulf ports… which go anywhere), while Iran’s pipelines go mainly east (China and India). Thus, Iran now faces a far greater competitor for oil sales in Russia than Iraq does. Given the choice of buying oil from Iran or Russia, I am inclined to think that exploding populations like China and India are far more inclined to look for a stable, established government than a radical, hate-mongering regime that has at least half of the world’s nations on its “Enemies of Allah” list. Couple this with the fact that Russia now OUT PRODUCES Iran in crude oil AND natural gas, and I think you can see my point. Russia can under-cut Iranian oil to the Far East and India with very little risk to themselves… and this is very bad for Iran. A democratic Iraq, on the other hand, has guaranteed oil contracts with any one of a dozen Western nations that are consuming oil at an ever growing rate… far out-pacing Russia’s ability to pump it into Europe, or even the US and UK’s ability to produce it themselves (at least for the next 20 years or so). That is an estimated $60 billion a year in guaranteed national income at today’s reduced production rates of oil exported from Iraq! If Russia were to turn up the heat, Iran wouldn’t have the market to turn to in the West, and the poorer corners of the Far East can’t guaranty the cash they way we “Imperialistic infidels” can.

Finally, a secure and stable Iraq gives states like Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, UAE, and even Kuwait a neighbor they can trust and do business with that isn’t going to hold the threat of a Shi’a revolution over their heads. Iran’s influence in these nations, given the failure of the US effort in Iraq (the one Hillary and Barak want so very badly), can only spell total disaster for the US and her European allies… and Israel. If Iran is allowed, via the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq prior to a secure Iraqi state, to gain a hegemony over the region, then the question of US troops in the region is right back on the table to counter Iranian threats to US interests.

In short (too late, right?), I am now convinced that the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do for the reasons given above. The bold-faced caveat is there because I do not remove the onus of responsibility from the shoulders of the Bush Administration for “tinting” the view that was presented to the US public and the world at large concerning the level of threat that Saddam posed to US interests in 2003. However, I fail to see how ANY alternative to the course of action that was taken by the Bush Administration could have produced a better result, even given what we know to be true about Iraqi WMDs and terror-links.

Like it or not, we “own” the broken pottery that is Iraq (I’m mincing Powell’s words here), but if we had to break a pot… this was the one to break. And there was NO WAY OUT of the Pottery Barn without breaking a pot. That is becoming more and more clear with each passing day.