The Middle East Interest

img: Sam Hadley

by Fouad Ajami

We needn’t give credence to the idea of a vast “Shiite crescent” stretching from Iran to Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to appreciate the challenge posed by the Iranian theocrats to the American project in Iraq and to the order of that Greater Middle East. These are crafty players, the men who rule that radical realm. The networks of terror they have at their disposal have a way of overlooking the fine distinctions of theology and politics. In its struggle for primacy in the habitat around it, Iran is not a Shiite power per se: It aids and abets a Shiite-armed movement in Lebanon and also works with the Sunni die-hards of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories. [read on]