Just as East Berlin was a nest of murder and intrigue between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Iraq is a theater for the showdown between Iran and the United States.
After almost four years we still don't understand the region, do not even speak the languages in significant numbers so we are hopelessly disadvantaged in this fight. We can go after the Iranian operatives in country with lethal force, we can wave guns around and blow up anything we choose. Force will never win over the Iraqis. The Iranians, on the other hand, play it so much smarter. As reported in the Washington Post last week they are backing every horse in the race to win Iraq, not just the Shia groups that they sheltered and encouraged throughout Saddam's terror reign and who now stand poised to control most of the country. The Iranians have sought out Sunnis and Kurds and lavished them all with aid.
We, on the other hand, not knowing the region and playing spies at a middle school level while the Iranians are teaching in grad school, have been getting our asses handed to us from the beginning. Our main asset in this whole boondoggle, Ahmed Chalabi, is a snakey embezzler whom, it turned out, was actually slipping classified information to -- you guessed it - the Iranians.
I've read several articles stating that the U.S. is having a hard time getting accurate information about what's going on inside Iran. The CIA barely has any good assets there they complain. Unless the C.I.A. is craftily misleading us, like Columbo with his shabby trenchcoat, how incompetent can an organization possibly be? Iraq was one thing, I have rarely met an Iraqi, but Persians? Has the CIA never visited Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, West L.A., my nephrologist? If our intelligence community were playing at the level that we need them to in order to keep us safe we should know as much about Iran as we know about Italy or Mexico.
By the way, Chalabi's popped up again. This time as our man in Syria.