Mr Sheridan, reflect on the issue please

Comments on Greg Sheridan’s “Unstable trio endangers world”, the Australian, 9/05/2009, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25449729-7583,00.html

Mr Sheridan, your article has raised new challenges amid the ongoing world financial and economic crisis not seen since the great depression more than seventy years ago. Let’s leave your least threatening one North Korea aside for the moment and let’s talk about the more threatening first two – Iran and Pakistan.

I would argue that the situations in both countries in the context of posing a threat to the international community have been made worse by the Iraq war, for which Australia has been a member of the coalitions of willing.

The Iraq war has been a strategic failure not only for the US and the coalitions of willing, but for a greater international community. Firstly, it shifted the regional balance in that region in favour of Iran, not only in the sense that it does not have Iraq as a strong regional opponent, but also that the present Iraq government is closely related to Iran in many areas.

Secondly, t unnecessarily distracted the fight against Al Qaeda and the residual extreme Taliban in Afghanistan. This allowed them to regroup and now to destabilise Pakistan, not to mention the worsening situations in Afghanistan and rising military tolls for the international forces.

Thirdly, the Iraq war was done under the name of pre-empty actions based on false intelligence at the best and possibly manufactured and highly manipulated information. A war against another country has been proven to have based on false premise. It divided the international community and discredited the US in its leadership and undermined the strong support for the war against terror following 9/11. This damage may be more lasting.

Had not there been the Iraq war to distract the efforts of war in Afghanistan, the situations in both Iran and Pakistan would be much different and less threatening to the international security. It is a very fresh and useful lesson to learn, isn’t it?

I may be mistaken, but it appeared that you were a strong supporter of the Iraq war and Australia’s participation in it. It is an interesting irony that you might wish to reflect on this issue of the worsening international security situation due to the unstable trio?