To the editor: Reports indicate al—Sadr may be allowed to go into exile in Iran till July when an interim government takes over. At which time he can return to "face Iraqi justice" or stay where he is.
 
Have we not learned the Khomeini lesson and his being sent into exile in 1964/65 and returning later to ruin Iran? Have the acid lessons of the Carter years evaporated or have eyes and ears turned blind and deaf or careless about the near future disaster this would bring?
 
Now we want to send Sadr to wait in Iran until a political easing of US control in Iraq allows him to return — with full Iranian backing and FUNDING — and overthrow the political government in forthcoming "elections" in an unstable and easily influenced Shia Iraq? January 2005? For another Shia "jurist" Khomeini regime rather than a "quietist" philosophy of al—Sistani?
 
Good grief! Do we learn nothing from history? Are our intelligence services so deplete of common sense? Or so discredited they cannot proffer a warning that will be accepted by decision makers and the White House? Can the military not see how much harder they will have to fight in the future for this "small" concession or mis—step?
 
For God's sake, pay heed despite the pull of election year pressures. Otherwise anti—war opponents will be proved right that Iraq was a disaster (like Iran during Carter years) instead of the long term liberation from oppression and tyranny that we and our President all want.
 
Alan Peters,
Orange County, California