Posted on 10/29/2009 3:05:03 PM PDT by thisisthetime
It was late February 2003, a few weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and President George W. Bush's administration still lacked a real strategy for the would-be regional hegemon next door. As the Iran desk officer in the office of the secretary of defense, I felt desperate. We were about to invade Iraq without a definitive policy toward its most bitter foe. I feared a repeat of Vietnam and saw in Iran a new Ho Chi Minh Trail -- the enemy lifeline that snaked through Laos and Cambodia and helped dash U.S. hopes for Southeast Asia. I knew that the Islamic Republic would endeavor to replicate this disaster in the Middle East from the moment U.S. troops stormed Baghdad -- just as it had bloodied our noses in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, andelsewhere for decades.
In fact, I knew from my sources that Tehran had already prepared an entire network of operatives, proxies, and weapons ready to challenge the United States as soon as it toppled Saddam Hussein. I also knew it would be foolish to assume -- as many in the Bush administration did -- that Iraq's many pro-Iranian political and religious leaders could be trusted to cooperate with the United States' stated goal of building "a peaceful … democratic, and united Iraq." I had spoken with many of these people myself and was on friendly terms with the representatives of several prominent Shiite religious leaders. I was not an ideologue, and I spoke Farsi. I was steeped in Islamic culture and history. I suspected that many of these individuals were essentially Iranian agents -- including the opportunistic "man for all factions" Ahmad Chalabi, a suspicion eventually confirmed when I was later told he had encouraged the pro-Iranian Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to "dig in" against the U.S. Marines…
(Excerpt) Read more at thewoodwardreport.com ...
I'm guessing Midnight Basketball(?)
My Secret Plan to Overthrow the Mullahs
but Bush wouldn’t let me. It’s all his fault.
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