By George Friedman | December 21, 2009

A small number of Iranian troops entered Iraq, where they took control
of an oil well and raised the Iranian flag Dec. 18. The Iranian-Iraqi
border in this region is poorly defined and is contested, with the
Iranians claiming this well is in Iranian territory not returned after
the Iran-Iraq War. Such incidents have occurred in the past. Given that
there were no casualties this time, it therefore would be easy to
dismiss this incident, even though at about the same time an Iranian
official claimed that Iraq owes Iran about $1 trillion in reparations
for starting the Iran-Iraq War.

But what would be fairly trivial at another time and place is not trivial now. Read more »