Confronting Iran

"The Problem With Confronting Iran" by Tony Karon appears to be a well-written and informative article, overall.

Intention is defined as a determination or resolve to act in a certain. It implies something that is tangible an attainable. According to Karon's article, the intention of the Bush Administration is to keep Iran and its government out of Iraq and its affairs, both political and domestic.

Iraqi Sunni leaders agree with Bush's accusations of Iran "meddling" in the affairs of Iraq but the Shi'ite and Kurdish leaders in the Iraqi government do not share this opinion. According to Karon's article, the Shi'ite and Kurdish parties "have close ties with Iran forged during years of exile and warfare."1 Iraqi's foreign minister, Hayshar Zebari and other Kurdish leaders are demanding the immediate release of five Iranian officials who were arrested in the Kurdish city of Erbil.

Consequence is defined as something produced by a cause or a following of a set of conditions. "While U.S. officials talk about curbing meddling and saying the men arrested were part of Iran's Revolutionary Guard armed forces,"2 the U.S. apparently did not foresee the consequences of this act of arresting these Iranian officials. This arrest greatly upset the Kurdish leaders and appears to have given the U.S. a bad mark for not checking with the Kurdish officials in Erbil before beginning a military operation there.

While the White House's primary intention was to "oust Saddem and enable the democracy that put Shi'ites in power, there was no conflict for Iran's longtime Iraqi allies between cooperating with the American's and maintaining close ties with Iran."3 Now, it appears that the White House is changing their intentions and Iran appears to have much warmer ties to the Iraqi ruling party than the U.S. does. It