Here is an article by Jack Wheeler (allegedly the guy who originated the "Reagan Doctrine" for dealing with the Soviet empire). This article articulates what I have long thought was President Bush's objective in Iraq. Apparently not many people saw the situation as I did, so it is good to see that someone with a lot of International Political experience does. I have been particularly interested in the Democrat's reaction to the war in Iraq. I can't figure out if they are just dumb, if they are so commited to multiculturalism that they are OK with a US defeat by Muslims, or if they are such political opportunists that they are willing to sacrifice US national interests to achieve electoral success. I suspect the latter. Here is the article:

The Al Qaeda-Iran axis has been beaten in Iraq

Dr. Jack Wheeler
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 26 November 2007

TTPers (To The Point News) have known for many moons now that the American military is winning a tremendous victory in Iraq. This week, Tony Blankley and Jack Kelly provide updates in Declaring Victory and Declaring Defeat. The media is finally and begrudgingly acknowledging the reality of victory. So far, however, the focus has been entirely on the defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Yet this has been a two-front war, a war to terrorize and destabilize Iraq waged not just by AQI, but by Iran.

Now we learn that not only is terrorist violence vanishing in Sunni regions of AQI focus, but in Shia regions of Iranian focus. AP is reporting that Basra violence is down 90%. America's victory in Iraq means that both Al Qaeda and Iran have been defeated... simultaneously.

Now here's a question to consider: Was this George Bush’s goal all along?

He has always maintained that the War in Iraq was being conducted “to fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here.” “Them” seems now to mean both varieties of Moslem terrorists: Sunni Al Qaeda-types and Shia Iranian-types. GW identified Iraq as the one place both of them could be taken down at the same time. Iraq as a two-fer! Yes, the man can be scary-smart. With painful obviousness, not all the time. But when he is, he can hit a geopolitical ten-strike.

Let’s not go there, though. Let’s focus instead on the consequences of defeat in Iraq for Iran. They are very grave. One of the gravest examples is the emerging Arab Shia anti-Iran Alliance. First the background check. According to Islamic mythology, the Sunni-Shia split occurred at the very inception, right after Mohammed’s death in 632. One faction, followers of Mohammed’s uncle and El Segundo, Abu Bakr, called themselves Ahl-as-Sunnah, people of the path or example of Mohammed.

Another faction followed Mohammed’s son-in-law, Ali, married to his daughter Fatima (somehow, for all his many wives, Mohammed managed to have no sons and only one daughter), calling themselves Shi’at Ali, the party of Ali. When Ali was assassinated in 661, the Shia leadership fell upon Ali and Fatima’s son Hussein, the first male descendent of Mohammed. In the legendary Battle of Karbala in 680 between the Sunnis and Shias, the latter were disastrously defeated and Hussein killed. Thus the two holy cities for Shias, their Meccas, are Najaf where Ali is buried in a golden tomb, and Karbala, the battle site and where Hussein is buried in a golden-domed mausoleum. Both are in present-day Iraq. Arab Iraq. The Sunni-Shia factional split is an Arab phenomenon.

Yet we associate Shias with Persia, with Iran, with mad-dog Ayatollahs like Khomeini. That’s because 500 years ago, the founder of the Safayed Dynasty in Persia, Shah Ismail I (1487-1524) hijacked Shi’ism to be a state religion as a unifying force in his successful effort to glue Persia back together from pieces seized by it from the Sunni Ottoman Turks and Sunni Uzbek Khans. Ever since Ismail, Shi’ism has been a despised Persian heresy, with Sunni Arabs hating Shia Persians, and hating Shia Arabs who insisted on sticking with their version of Islam.

But the fact is there are a lot of Shia Arabs. 16 million in Iraq alone, over 60% of the population. 4 million right across the border, the Ahwazi Arabs of Iran. Millions more in Kuwait, Bahrain, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries. Their religious leaders or Ayatollahs are seizing the opportunity Iran’s defeat in Iraq is giving them to form an Anti-Iran Alliance.

It doesn’t have that title, so to be more precise it’s an alliance against the radical terrorist interpretation of Shi’ism by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors who rule Iran today. For these Arab Ayatollahs assert that the Khomeinist version of Shi’ism is the total antithesis of the most basic Shia beliefs. Among the most basic is the traditional Shia belief that a theocracy is heresy, literally against the will of Allah. Shias believe in an Islamic Messiah, the Hidden Imam who will return someday — and only upon his return will there be an Islamic rule of humanity.

When Khomeini established a theocratic tyranny in the name of Shia Islam, it horrified many Shia leaders — among them Khomeini’s mentor and primary Islamic tutor, the Grand Ayatollah Taher al-Khaqani. When Khaqani went to see his former student to protest the utter heresy and immorality of Khomeini’s oppression, Khomeini ordered him thrown into prison where he had him murdered. Taher al-Khaqani was an Ahwazi Arab. It is his son, Qazem al-Khaqani, who is spearheading the Shia Arab Anti-Iran Alliance. Again, it’s not an attack on Persia/Iran or on Persians — but rather, an effort to rescue Shi’ism from its captors now ruling in Tehran.

What Qazem al-Khaqani emphasizes is the traditional Shia belief in the separation of religion and politics, of mosque and state. Thus, he argues, the current government in Iran is un-Islamic. Khaqani has launched a direct Shia assault on the Islamic legitimacy of the Mullacracy in Iran. He forcefully argues for democracy and a secular government as the best way to safeguard freedom of religion — and just as forcefully denounces Jihadism, suicide bombing or any other form of terrorism, and any imposition of “Sharia” religious law upon people. He did so, for example, in a speech at the British House of Commons in London.

His message is resonating with Shia Arabs not just in Iran and Iraq, but in the Gulf States and throughout the Arab world. With help from wealthy Shia in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait, there may soon be a Shia Arab satellite television station in London broadcasting into Iran. Khaqani's message and its resonance could be the Mullacracy's death knell — for what provides the gigantic megaphone is the emerging Shia democracy in Iraq. The Maliki government in Baghdad achieving stability and legitimacy terrifies Tehran — and it is doing so where it frightens Tehran the most: in the Arab world.

Arabs — moderate anti-radical Shia Arabs — are about to reclaim Shi’ism away from the mad-dog mullahs of Iran. The collapse of the regime’s Islamic rationale and legitimacy could be the precursor to the implosion of the regime itself.

Regime change from within is the best outcome for Iran. Shia Arabs may help precipitate it.