Albright 'Iran big beneficiary of US-led Iraq war'

Iran has benefited most from the US-led war in Iraq and would make further gains if the daily bloodshed ended up dividing the country, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright said Sunday.



As for the Iranian nuclear row, a "high level" member of the administration should respond to a letter from Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to US President George W. Bush and also engage in direct dialogue with Tehran, Albright told the BBC in an interview while on a visit to London.

The former top US diplomat welcomed the formation on Saturday of Iraq's first permanent government since the ousting of Saddam Hussein, but reiterated her concerns about the situation.

"The main problems that I see are the unintended consequences of this war, the biggest one frankly being at the moment is that the country that gained the most out of this war is Iran so I am very worried about it," she said.

Albright, who served under former president Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001, highlighted the dangers of an internal conflict between Iraq's Shia Muslim majority and the Sunni minority.

Asked what she thought about the risk of the country being divided into three parts -- the Kurdish north, the Sunni-dominated centre and the Shia south -- Albright said this would be a dangerous development.

"It would have deep implications obviously on Turkey and the Kurdish issue. It would give additional power to Iran in the south with the Shia . Then the centre, which is primarily Sunni, is not homogeneous either, and one is unclear as to what role the Saudis might play or Jordanians," she said.

Source Here

If only that kind of intelligence was listened to before we invaded Iraq. It is not like she is saying anything new. Albright's thinking matches exactly what British and American think tanks have been stating for years.

A perfect example being that during the mandate period (as defined by the league of nations in 1920) and much repeated in further high level thinking within the Intelligence field. The British had always supported the traditional, Sunni leadership with all it's might. For 'common sense' shows that the creation of a huge Shiite power base that crosses the national borders of Iraq and Iran would be a huge danger to middle east stability.

Hence supporting the Sunni minority was the only way known to hold the three separate factions within Iraq intact. Preventing any eventual destruction of the country and possibly the middle east.

Failing to learn from history seems to be the common rhetoric coming from the war supporters head office these days. But failing to learn the history of the Iraq and why we spent the whole of the 2oth century trying to keep it as it was seems to be the only lesson they themselves are not learning. Or in the case of president Bush can we simply assume that he failed to learn any history at all ?

Maybe he just 'decided' not to learn any.