It is perhaps an index of globalization’s totalizing embrace that foreign policy communities around the world have been chuckling over the same one-liner all year long: The war in Iraq is over and Iran has won. Well, there’s no doubt that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) long and assiduous cultivation of Shiite networks in Iraq reaped dividends once Iraq’s former president Saddam Hussein, the IRI’s most serious threat, was deposed from power. But in truth, nearly everyone with an interest in the region has a lot to be thankful for this New Year’s Eve. But given the disappointments, betrayals and miseries that have befallen the Middle East over the last century, it’s not clear that even younger Arabs are capable of seeing events except as a variation on catastrophe. Or, to put it another way, if the Israelis are still around, we must still be living in the shadow
