Unintented consequences of Iraq

Neocon Iraq Policy Has Been Costly
Regarding Bret Stephens's "The Neocons Make a Comeback" (Global View, Sept. 29): Nothing says more about the failure of the neoconservative-inspired foreign policy of George W. Bush than our current standoff with Iran.
By crippling the Sunni-dominated Iraqi dictatorship as a regional power, rather than pursuing the more limited goals of containing its political and military influence, the U.S. removed the one tried and true counterbalance to the Shiite-fascist Iranian dictatorship. Iran has benefited greatly by our having forcefully removed, at considerable cost, a natural enemy, Sunni Baathist Iraq, with which it fought a costly eight-year war in the 1980s.
Now that it is generally accepted throughout the world that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was based on erroneous intelligence information, key potential allies in our efforts to challenge Iran, such as China, have an excuse to be skeptical about the application of "crippling sanctions." Ironically, Israel is now at greater risk than at any time in its 61-year history.
To make matters worse, the diversion of precious military resources to Iraq has enabled a Taliban comeback in Afghanistan and in the Pakistan frontier at a time when the American public has little appetite for escalating the battle.
Scott Bernstein
Muttontown, N.Y.