Witnesses Say Protesters Killed in Iran – Sphere blog

According to a Sphere blog entry of about an hour ago, Iran has now opened fire on protestors who are objecting to Iran’s apparently "stolen election administration" in Tehran. At least four people are reported dead.  This is getting worse and Iran almost certainly is a lot closer to having nuclear capability than the West previously imagined.  That makes a bad situation worse. The story is entitled Witnesses Say Protesters Killed in Iran.

It looks as if, with very little effort and very little prodding, Iran will enter into civil war within months, perhaps weeks.  If that is the case and we are on the ground with troops in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, it is now decision time. With an ongoing war in Pakistan that we do not publicly acknowledge and our almost certain Special Ops presence in Yemen, we are now in a fully engaged regional war based loosely on religious tenets within Islam in the Middle East.  Like it or not, we are "in".

To see this any other way is to be asleep, unconscious or simply deluded.  We are now fully engaged in the Wars of the Muslim Reformation.  We need to acknowledge that. And we need to decide on a plan.

We now have to decide, and very quickly, are we in or are we out? 

Because within months it seems apparent that the entire Middle East will be more or less in a constant state of low level warfare and we have several standing armies in the region at this time.  It will be impossible to escape heavy involvement once the missiles start flying, the bombs start killing American troopers involved in Obama’s "peace mission" for eighteen more months (!?) in Afghanistan and whatever other charade the defense department is attempting to pull off in order to gain more access to more taxpayer money.

What are our responsibilities to our own citizens?  What are our priorities?  What should we do now?

Do you support a widening American involvement in this Middle Eastern insanity?  Why or why not?

How does it benefit us?  What are our national security concerns here?

All of a sudden , "getting out" of the Middle East just got a whole lot more difficult to plan and execute. 

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)

Addendum to this article from the Washington Post dated 12/28/2009

Here is a story that appeared in today’s Post entitled Reports: Iran steps up crackdown on opposition. They are rounding up opposition leaders in Iran.  That is the first stages of a civil war.  Goodbye any hope of a peaceful settlement in Iran!