A spokesman for
the National Security Council confirmed on Sunday that U.S.
military personnel had captured several senior Iranian
military officers in raids in Baghdad last week. The
detainees are suspected members of the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps, which trains Hezbollah and other terrorist
organizations.
More than
likely, this incident will cause an international outcry for
the Iranians' release, especially since there no hard
evidence has surfaced linking the Iranians to acts of
violence in Iraq; but there's no question that Iranian
agents are in Iraq trying to destabilize the existing
government.
Saddam was a
check against Iranian hegemony in the region. In Saddam's
absence, Iran is poised to become an Islamic super-state. The United States must prevent it from furthering its
expansion westward into Iraq and eastward into Afghanistan. This is disconcerting because the United States is unable
to undertake military operations in other countries because
the Army and Marine Corps are committed to Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Now our
strategic interest in Iraq is to check Iranian hegemony.
This task is made more difficult because Russia has been
selling the Iranians arms.
