Today's Wall Street Journal posted an article about what is going on behind the scenes in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent months, Iran has been shipping large quantities of weapons to be used against Americans into both of those countries.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
"Such arms shipments would escalate the shadow competition for influence playing out between Tehran and Washington across the Middle East and North Africa, fueled by U.S. preparations to draw down forces from two wars and the political rebellions that are sweeping the region.
"The U.S. is wrestling with the aftermath of uprisings against longtime Arab allies from Tunisia to Bahrain, and trying to leave behind stable, friendly governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran appears to be trying to gain political ground amid the turmoil and to make the U.S. withdrawals as quick and painful as possible."
The thing that we need to remember is that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes that it is his responsibility to usher in what some Shiite Muslims believe is the Muslim 'last days.' It is his belief that creating chaos will hasten the coming of the Twelfth Imam, which will in turn usher in the world-wide caliphate in which Iran will have a major role. In this religious philosophy, there is no value to current life--Muslims killed creating the chaos or as innocent bystanders will immediately go to paradise, so their lives are not as important as the end goal.
Meanwhile, since 1979, Iran has slowly been advancing on its goal of being the single important power in the Middle East. Our departure from Iraq and Afghanistan will leave a vacuum that Iran will be happy to fill. Once Iran activates its nuclear arsenal, neither Israel nor the United States will have any friends in the Middle East. Iran will control the flow of the world's oil supply through the Straits of Hormuz and aim its missles at Europe (and eventually the United States). Unless we are energy independent as a nation and have perfected our nuclear shield by then, we have a problem.
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