And if there were any doubts about Hezbollah's military capabilities, they were put to rest during the 2006 Lebanon War. Touched off by Hezbollah attacking an Israeli patrol within Israel's borders, by the war's end, the Israeli army retreated from Lebanon after suffering heavy losses and failing to obtain a single objective. The conflict left Hezbollah a clear strategic threat to Israel.

What came as a shock during this recent conflict was that Hezbollah had armed itself for a more conventional war. In a surprise attack, Hezbollah nearly sank an Israeli corvette-a small warship-with a Chinese-designed and Iranian-modified Silkworm missile. The sheer number of rockets Hezbollah fired on Israel blanked out Israel's most sophisticated radar. By attacking from hidden bunkers and caves, the effectiveness of Israel's air force was defeated. Finally, advanced antitank weapons and tactics neutralized Israel's armor.

The former Israeli deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, told me this year that Hezbollah's so-called "tandem charge" Russian antitank weapons disabled an alarming number of Israeli Merkava tanks. Israel, he said, has since developed new armor plating to protect against these rockets. Still, more advanced Russian weaponry could find its way into Hezbollah's hands, allowing the group to overcome Israel's technological advances.

Not only did Hezbollah win against Israel in July 2006, it was able to subsequently take over the Lebanese government in a nearly bloodless coup d'état. And there is little doubt that Hezbollah is politically and militarily stronger than it was at the beginning of the war. According to Israeli estimates and from my contacts close to the group's leadership, Hezbollah may have since trebled the number of rockets in its arsenal.

The first phase on the path to Iran's imperialist dream is formally, if not officially, complete. With Hezbollah effectively in control of the Lebanese state, and through Hezbollah's battle-tested guerilla force, Iran can clearly thwart Israel and the United States in Lebanon. If Israel, the strongest regional military power in the Middle East, is unable to defeat an Iranian proxy, it is precisely for this reason that it would be wise to fear the coming Iranian empire. Iran may never accomplish quite the same level of success that we've seen in Lebanon elsewhere, but Tehran shows every sign of drawing on the Lebanon model to undermine the Middle East's vulnerable regimes.

 

IRAN IS uniting Sunni and Shia, Persians and Arabs, across the Middle East. Through eighteen years of war in Lebanon, Iran pulled into its grasp Lebanese Shia, turning Hezbollah into a world-class military force. Iran also slowly but systematically recruited Lebanese Sunni to its side, and today has even established ties with Christian Maronite groups. The Israelis could only watch as Khomeini's Iran learned how to suborn Semitic Arabs. Even if Americans missed it, Israel understood the significance of the fact that Hezbollah's secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, doesn't have a drop of Persian blood in him and yet loyally and obediently fights in Iran's ranks. Just as important, during the last twenty-five years, Iran has gradually co-opted every Palestinian group in Lebanon, including Yasir Arafat's Fatah. And, lest we forget, the Palestinians are orthodox Sunni Muslims, a sect that has oppressed the Shia going back to the murder of the prophet's grandson Hussein in 680 AD.

Hezbollah and Nasrallah have inspired the alienated and disenfranchised throughout the Muslim world, stretching across sectarian lines. These successes are critical milestones in Iran's long-term imperial plans. Next stops: the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Egypt.

Hamas and the rest of the Palestinians are inexorably succumbing to Iran's sway. Part of Iran's appeal is pragmatic-my enemy's enemy is my friend. In the early nineties, at the same time that Iran was building Hezbollah, Israel made the error of expelling Hamas's leadership to Lebanon, forcing Hamas into the arms of Iran, which was more than willing to provide arms, food and shelter. Much like with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Tehran has provided strategic guidance, cash and matériel to Hamas when no one else will. In the bargain, Hezbollah and Iran were able to change Hamas's view of how to fight a resistance. There is good evidence that it was Hezbollah that pushed Hamas to adopt suicide bombings-and take over Gaza.

And this is how we got to where we are today, Iran heralded as savior of the oppressed, the only state in the Middle East fighting colonialism, standing up to the United States and Israel.

By rewriting Hezbollah's script, tapping a vein of anger and defiance, and turning Hezbollah into a virtual state and its militia into a modern guerilla force, Nasrallah has successfully projected himself as the new Saladin, putting Palestine, Jordan and Egypt under Iran's shadow. For Iran, the Palestinians were and are an essential vehicle to dominion over the Arabs-an ideal bigger than Iran. And by championing the Palestinian cause, Tehran bridges the Sunni-Shia divide. Iran now is the symbol of an empowered Muslim world.

On the Iranian road map to domination, once the Sunni Palestinian territories are under its thumb, Sunni countries like Jordan and Egypt will have no choice but to follow suit. The hearts and minds of the poor Sunni in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco are already half-won-they overwhelmingly sided with Hezbollah during the 2006 war. With the majority of Jordan's population Palestinian, most side with Hamas. In Jordan, as in Egypt, Iran has made inroads into the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, a group primarily concerned with bringing the Muslim religion into the affairs and laws of state. Tehran has convinced group members that neither faith nor Sunni orthodoxy alone will achieve their goals. In other words, the Muslim Brotherhood needs Hezbollah and Iran's military might. It is becoming a Hezbollah clone in Egypt and Jordan. If Iran is able to help avert a Sunni-Shia split in Iraq, or of course across the entire Middle East, this message will be all the more compelling.

And in many parts of the Muslim Middle East, Iran's imperialist dream is already being realized-thanks to U.S. mistakes. In spite of the "surge," Iraq remains imperiled, fortuitously allowing Iran to come full circle in its eight-year war with its neighbor. The United States has realized too late that it created the power void Iran is so well equipped to fill.

 

FROM THE outset, the Bush administration showed no sign that it understood the Iranian threat to Iraq when it decided to invade the country in 2003. In a paper widely circulated among advocates of the invasion, Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi stated that after Saddam's departure, Iran would stand little chance of making inroads into Iraq. Chalabi wrote:

The insurrection in the south that followed the uprising continues to simmer. The failure of the Islamic groups supported by Iran to wrest control from Saddam in the south has served to diminish any support or hope that the local population had in them. Their behavior during the intifada is increasingly believed to have been the cause of its failure.

Chalabi could not have been more wrong. The same Iranian-allied militias and political parties swept the parliamentary elections in Iraq in 2005. Although Chalabi's paper is more than ten years old, I offer it as evidence because it remains the predominant view in official Washington-Iran isn't a serious long-term threat to Iraq.

Signs of the strategy Iran developed with Hezbollah are everywhere in Iraq. Iran has been more or less a silent, yet active, advocate of the Iraqi army's deployment into Basra and other parts of the Shia south. Iran forced radical Shia militias to put down their arms, including Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, whose rash and uncoordinated attacks threatened Iran's grip on Iraq's Shia. When Sadr's actions threatened to provoke a Shia civil war, Iran pulled him back and sent him to Qum for religious training. Baghdad-one of the great cities of Sunni Islam from the eighth century until 2003-is now three-quarters Shia. The 2006-07 war for Baghdad made the shift very clear, and its symbolic significance for Muslims and Iran's standing cannot be overstated. America's surge was meant to contain a Sunni insurgency rather than contain an Iranian-backed Shia rise. Even the senior State Department officer for Iraq had to acknowledge Iran's crucial role. David Satterfield said on the record that the decline in violence in Iraq "has to be attributed to an Iranian policy decision."

Iraq, then, is or should shortly be counted in Iran's column. Conventional wisdom will jump at a categorical statement like this, but I'll let our ambassador in Iraq speak to what is going on in that country. In September 2008, Ryan Crocker stated on the record that Iran was blocking the status-of-forces agreement between Iraq and the United States. It is difficult to imagine better evidence that it is Iran, rather than the United States, that controls the elected Iraqi government.

Few American Middle East analysts see the situation in these same dire terms because they do not believe Iraq's Shia are Tehran's natural allies. They cite as evidence the Iran-Iraq War when Iraq's Shia died en masse fighting for Saddam. The Shia, they say, fought for Iraq rather than their sect. At a more basic level, they believe that ethnic Persians and Semitic Arabs can never mix-the ethnic and historical differences are too great. But, looking to Lebanon as a model, they are absolutely wrong. Those who think we have won Iraq are fooled. The United States can do nothing to contain Iranian proxies in Iraq short of full and permanent occupation.

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