Real Reason We Went Into Iraq

Why did we go to war in Iraq? Was it to set up a democracy, to control oil supplies or provide humanitarian relief? Perhaps each of these reasons played a part but the evidence of a deeper motivation is unspoken yet compelling.

After 9/11 it became clear that our enemies in the War on Terror were radical Sunni Muslims. Most of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia and all were proponents of violent Wahhabiism teachings. The Saudis themselves have been actively exporting the teachings of this poisonous cult around the world with their oil money.

I believe that our leaders deliberately chose to strike back at the radical Sunni power base using indirect means. The strategy we used was to strengthen the natural enemies of the Sunnis, the Shiites. The most promising allies among the Shiites are the moderates who have their historic center in Iraq. Not only is this group opposed to Al Qaeda but they are also out of step with the radical Shiites who now control the government of Iran.

How better to aid the moderate Shiites than to take out their nemesis, Saddam Hussein? This tyrant had stood for many years as a barrier against the hated Shiites as he ruthlessly persecuted them in Iraq and mounted a lengthy and bloody war against Iran. Sunni Muslims could mostly ignore the Shiites, many of whom live in their midst, because Saddam was keeping most of them under his thumb.

Saddam stopped being an ally of the US after “Iran-Contra” when he found that we were secretly working with Iran. If you research this strange episode, you will find commentators seem mystified as to the reasons behind it. No one states the obvious. We were helping Iran but needed to keep it a secret.

This plan seems to be working. Although we have no true friends among the Arab states, all sides need us as they fight with each other. The Bush administration boasts that the success of our policies is proven by the absence of attacks on our soil. Al Qaeda and other radical Sunnis are now concentrating their fury on the newly instituted Shiite regime taking shape in Iraq. The installation of a moderate Shiite regime in Iraq has the double benefit of becoming a thorn in the sides of radicals among both Shiites and Sunnis.

Even if there is more violence in Iraq or we are forced to leave, we will still have accomplished our primary goal of complicating the lives of our most dangerous enemy- radical Sunni Islam. They had thought of themselves as ascendant and free to spread their poison around the world. However, now they are on the defensive in their own back yard.

Time will tell if this has been a wise policy. Involving ourselves in the Mideast always results in unforeseen consequences. Consider the bitter harvest we have reaped as a result of our support for the Mujadeen in Afghanistan. The ones we built up during that struggle are the same ones who turned on us later.