War With Iran, Part 3

Heard at recent Congressional hearings on Iraq were more alarm bells warning of war with Iran, much to the delight of the Israel Lobby. General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker seemed obsessed with Iranian influence in Iraq. Apparently it is fine for us to invade and occupy a country which had done nothing to us, thereby bringing about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of its innocent citizens, but now we must also insist on no Iranian influence in our beloved occupation. Indeed we are now using "Iranian influence" as an excuse never to leave. It so happens that the Iraqi government we are responsible for creating is friends with Iran. Horrors! It also so happens that many Iraqi government officials were in exile in Iran for years during Saddam's rule. There are strong cultural ties between the two neighbors; Iranians in large numbers make religious pilgrimages into Iraq. In their testimony, Petraeus and Crocker described Iranian training, funding, and arming of so-called "special groups," claiming these groups are killing our soldiers. Yet Iraqis have made it clear that they do not want their country to be a battleground between Iran and the US. It's bad enough that our invasion brought in Al Qaeda, which the Iraqis had successfully managed to keep out before. Although the obvious solution is for us to end our occupation and withdraw from Iraq, it's equally clear that the Israel Lobby plans to use our Iraqi occupation as a staging ground from which to attack Iran.