Last week on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Former CIA operative Bob Baer had a couple interesting comments on developments in the Middle East:
MATTHEWS: [Regarding regime change in Iraq] Have we basically put the Shia, the more militant groups of Shia, into the driver’s seat in the Middle East?
BAER: Absolutely. And this is–you know, what happened when we invaded Iraq was we essentially turned the country over to radical Shia, and the leadership in Baghdad is radical Shia. I know most of these guys. In the ’90s, they took refuge in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with Hezbollah. There’s a close connection between the government in Baghdad and Hezbollah.
And what we’re seeing now is the development of a radical Shia arc, which goes from Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut now, which is what has the Sunni–and that’s Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf and Egypt and Jordan–so worried, and this is why they’ve come out against Hezbollah.
MATTHEWS: You know, I’ve heard that from the mouth of one of the leaders of one of those Sunni countries. As you just describe it is the wave he described it, the fear of an emerging Shia crescent across all the Middle East.
The Sunni governments which tend to be moderate are now being overwhelmed by something we may have had a hand in triggering, the continuity now from Tehran, through Baghdad, down through Beirut. We may have created our worst enemy. Do you believe that?
BAER: Chris, this is a catastrophe, Iraq, and this is going to go on for years. Iraq is going to change us. We’re not going to change Iraq. I got calls from Damascus just before I got on the phone with you, and the Sunni are worried. They’re leaving Damascus, afraid that this war in Lebanon is going to spread to Syria, and they’re going to pay the Sunni. You know, they’re going to flee to the Gulf, wherever they can.
The division between the Shia and the Sunni in the Middle East is our greatest threat to the United States. When people talk about World War III, it’s not a traditional war against us from nuclear bombs or anything, it’s from the split that will lead to a regional war which will ultimately and I repeat–will affect oil supplies.
Generally, I’ve thought of a looming Iraq disaster in a domestic framework: the nation becomes embroiled in civil war and perhaps fractures. This regional scenario is obvious far worse, and quite disturbing in its plausibility. Baer’s comment about Iraq “changing us” rather than the other way around is a telling suggestion that those running the show don’t understand the Middle East. But we already knew that.
One last note: it’s interesting that the warmongers currently beating the drums for strikes against Iran and Syria (for their ties to Hezbollah) aren’t mentioning Iraq’s role in this. I wonder why that is?