Subject: Re: kidding ourselves
Close. You're only 1 letter off.

Yep. George W. Bush has a lot to answer for.

Look, it's no secret that the entire region's political and security issues have re-oriented around checking Iran's bloc and their effort to expand Shi'a power. Prior to the Second Gulf War, Iraq was the primary obstacle to Iran exercising regional hegemony. Iran had influence through their client proxies in Syria and Lebanon, but mostly they had their hands full dealing with the military threat posed by Iraq. The U.S. decided they would eliminate the Iraqi regime and try to replace it with a government sympathetic to the West, but instead it ended up being a major Shiite ally of Iran.

That upended the entire regional balance of power, driving all the Sunni states to seek stronger alliances amongst themselves and against the Shiite bloc. And it's led Iran to continue to push and prod that new bloc using their proxy paramilitary organizations.