The Case of the Meddling Iranians in Iraq
Politics / Iran Mar 13, 2007 - 10:11 AM GMTFor more than 18 months now, the George W. Bush administration has periodically raised the charge that Iran is meddling in Iraq . US defense officials recently displayed “Explosively Formed Projectiles” and heat sensitive detectors allegedly required for their remote detonation. To further buttress the ‘meddling' charge, the Americans also claimed to have arrested some ‘Iranian provocateurs', including two diplomats.
That, sirs, is not meddling.
Iranians share close to a thousand miles long border with Iraq , have fought a 9- year long bloody war with that country and with whom they share not just a problematic past but the chief religion of their citizenry too.
Furthermore, Iran's worst nightmare, America herself is now a clear, present and firmly established danger in Iraq that is not only nurturing dissident Iranian factions for a regime overthrow in Iran but is, reportedly, already overseeing covert operations in there. If the Iranians have not started ‘meddling' in Iraq so far, they indeed have shown an almost inhuman restraint.
As American officials are now sitting with their Iranian counterparts to discuss the ‘meddling' neighbors, let us remind them what meddling is. The hurt innocence of the American officials not withstanding, of course.
Meddling, if not infinite meddling, is the invasion and perpetual occupation of distant Iraq, a country that had no common borders with United States of America and had shown no hostile intent or action towards her.
Meddling is the blowing into smithereens of entire Iraqi infrastructure and pumping up that country with poisonous gases and depleted uranium in the process. Meddling is the firing upon Iraqis some 2500 tons of depleted uranium munitions, having a radio-active equivalent of thousands of Nagasaki bombs, and a half-life of 4.5 billion years, in 2004 alone.
Meddling is the filling of Iraqi prisons with Iraqis, causing the mass killing of close to three-quarters of a million of its population and demoting the living ones into third-rate citizenry of their own country. Meddling is the unleashing of the apparition of sectarianism and, in so doing, bringing a brutal civil war upon that doomed country that continues to take a deadly toll on its unfortunate people with no end in sight.
Meddling is the laying waste to Fallujah, just one Iraqi city for example, that has been bombed, re-bombed, its citizens gunned down, its structures devastated by powerful weapons turning it into a hell on earth of crushed bodies, shattered buildings and the stench of death. Meddling is the use of artillery and warplanes dropping 500, 1000, and 2000-pound bombs, 70-ton Abrams Tanks and the murderous AC-130 Spectre gunship for the purpose. Meddling is the stationing of Marine snipers at appropriate sites in that blighted city who were crisscrossing the entire town firing at will at whatever moved outside the buildings.
Meddling is the consequent 7000 totally destroyed, or nearly totally destroyed homes, the complete destruction of 8400 stores, workshops, clinics, warehouses, 65 mosques, 59 kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools and technical colleges and 13 government buildings in all districts of Fallujah. Meddling is the gutting of four libraries in that city that housed thousands of ancient Islamic manuscripts and books.
Meddling is the stationing of about 140,000 American troops inside Iraq in a dozen or so permanent military bases, and planning a surge of another 25000 troops. Meddling is the keeping of an additional 100,000 government contractors, not counting the subcontractors, who like trolls tag along in the shadows bristling with state of the art weaponry and drooling at their mouths at the prospect of fresh blood in the Iranians' collective jugular.
Meddling is the maintenance of well over 700 foreign military outposts spread over a total of 140 countries around the world, including Asia, Europe and Africa of which at least 60 are considered permanent.
Meddling is the going to war in no less than 23, some say 67, places on the globe since WW II. Meddling is the dropping of over a hundred million tons of bombs on foreign lands over the last 50 years.
That, sirs, is meddling and not the finding of a few “Explosively Formed Projectiles”, heat sensitive detectors and the arrest of ‘Iranian provocateurs', including two diplomats.
Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines meddling as, “interfering without right or propriety” and the WordWeb online terms it as intruding in other people's affairs or business; interfering unwantedly.
A ‘sickbag' is defined as a bag used when there is a need to vomit.
While the readers decide who is meddling where, someone hand me a sickbag please.
By Anwaar Hussain
http://www.truthspring.info
Copyright © 2007 Anwaar Hussain
Anwaar Hussain is an ex-F-16 fighter pilot from Pakistan Air Force. A Masters in Defense and Strategic Studies from Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad, he now resides in UAE. He started writing as a hobby not very far back and has, since then, published a series of articles in Defense Journal, South Asia Tribune and a host of other web portals. Other than international affairs, Anwaar Hussain has written extensively on religious and political issues that plague Pakistan.
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