Iran Assessment

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
The only "national identity" that the Iraqis have is that the best way to get into power is to use violence.

[/ QUOTE ]Please bear in mind that nothing brings various ethnic strains within a country together more potently than an outside threat. This has happened time and again throughout History.

Remember the Iraq-Iran war? The tensions between Shias and Sunnis in Iraq practically disappeared overnight and a stronger Iraqi national identity was forged, simply by having a common enemy, i.e. "the Persians". Famously, some of the bravest war heroes were Shia Iraqis, fighting against their Iranian co-believers like mad. (One of them, has been recently given the task by the Iraqi government to clean up Baghdad from "terrorists" - and that includes the Shia militias.)

What I'm saying is that, besides creating out of nowhere a veritable terrorist recruiting & training haven in Iraq, the American presence also provides the various groups with a common enemy, a unifying cause. Shias and Sunnis are killing each other but they both kill Americans.

Those boys are dying for a united Iraq, if you think about it.