And I Ran, I Ran So Far Away (The Hidden Friedman)

But Tom Friedman can't get away with his Friday column--America's Iran Policy: Iraq (full available to Times Select subscribers)--which makes the case that pulling out of Iraq would not be a win-win deal for Iran. Not that Tom wants to pull out of Iraq, but he's just positing...

I am not in favor of withdrawing from Iraq now — not while there is still a chance for a decent outcome. But if we did pull out of Iraq, it would make life incredibly complicated for Tehran. There's a lot of cheap talk that Iran was the big winner from the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Don't be so sure. Hundreds of years of Mesopotamian history teach us that Arabs and Persians do not play well together.

Right now, the natural antipathy and competition between Iraqi Arabs and Iranian Persians — even though large numbers of both are Shiite Muslims — have been muted because of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Both sides can focus their anger on us.

But as soon as we leave — and you can bet the house and kids on this — the natural rivalry between Iraqi Arabs and Iranian Persians will surface. Culture, history and nationalism matter. Iran and Iraq did not fight a war for eight years by mistake, or just because Saddam was in power. Once America is out of Iraq, it will not be a winning political strategy for any Iraqi politician to be known as "pro-Iranian" or, even worse, as an instrument of Tehran's.

If we were out of Iraq today and Iran had to manage the chaos there, on its border, it would be a huge, energy-draining problem for Tehran. Iraqis, in case you haven't noticed, have a rather violent, independent streak. Anyone who thinks Iraq is some overripe fruit that will fall into Iran's lap as soon as we leave, and obediently stay there, doesn't know Iraq or Iran. Iraqi Arab Shiites did not wait for centuries to rule Iraq in order to turn it over to Iranian Persian Shiites. Not a chance.

In their superb, must-read, military history of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, "Cobra II," Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor explain why Saddam always wanted to keep the world in doubt about his W.M.D., even when his cupboard was bare: it was to deter Iran. Remember, Iraq and Iran each used poison gas against the other in their war. The last thing Saddam wanted was to let Iran know he was out of gas. Gordon and Trainor quote the Iraqi military intelligence director as telling U.S. interrogators after the war: "What did we think was going to happen with the coalition invasion? We were more interested in Turkey and Iran." All geopolitics is local.

[...]

The only thing more frightening to the Iranians than the U.S. leaving Iraq, would be — and this is my preference — the U.S. succeeding in Iraq. [...] The more Iraqi Shiites are empowered in a democratic Iraq, the more Iranian Shiites will ask why they don't have the same rights as the folks next door? Also, the major spiritual centers of Shiite Islam aren't in Iran, but in Iraq.

While we still have troops on the ground in the middle of the shit, things are not going to get any better. I'm liking the Murtha proposal more and more, of pulling back but not completely disengaging from the area/region and having quick-strike forces at the ready.

Speaking of Iran, the BradBlog has an interesting post about BushCo potentially bending intelligence to shade Iran as the culprit behind IEDs in Iraq (an idea proffered first by intelligence czar John Negroponte, and subsequently repeated by the President, but eventually seemingly shut down by both Rummy and General Peter Pace).