Glenn Greenwald: Staying in Iraq = Greatly increased risk of war with Iran

I can’t think of a more appropriate way to spend a little time on Memorial Day than to post about Glenn Greenwald’s must read article, The risks of staying.

Excerpts: “The most glaring of these risks is the prospect of military conflict with Iran -- the by-product not of some deliberative democratic debate over whether to go to war with that country, but rather a natural outgrowth of our occupation of Iraq.

“One of the most under-discussed facts with regard to Iraq is that the very people who conceived of the invasion and who are the architects of our current military strategy have always believed, and still believe, that we must go to war with Iran. Our current strategy in Iraq was designed and, to a large degree, implemented with that goal in mind.

“Whatever the ‘benefits’ supposedly are from staying, are they worth incurring the substantial risk that we are enabling our country's warmongers to achieve their real goal of spreading our war beyond Iraq to their long list of Middle East Enemies, beginning with Iran? The Reluctant Withdrawal Opponents who are insisting that we stay longer are the ones who will enable exactly that outcome.”

That military conflict with Iran could result from the “natural outgrowth of our occupation of Iraq” is supported by this morning’s New York Times article, Militants Widen Reach as Terror Seeps Out of Iraq, “The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from around the world, is beginning to export fighters and the tactics they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries and beyond, according to American, European and Middle Eastern government officials and interviews with militant leaders in Lebanon, Jordan and London.”

As it heats up in the Middle East, it’s easy, oh so easy, for the U.S. to blame Iran and Syria, the other “Middle East Enemy.”

(photo of Glenn Greenwald from MotherJones.com)