Timetable

The U.S. military is angry at Iran. They say that one hundred seventy coalition forces have been killed by Iranian-made roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) that were smuggled into Iraq. Silly Iranians, don't they know this is our war? Why can't they stay out of it? Could it be that their barely-stable Middle Eastern country borders Iraq and with hundreds of miles of desert to cross unseen, Iraqi refugees continue to pour out and Iranian extremists continue to pour in? The obvious solution for this problem would be to have Haliburton construct (at considerable expense) a large fence or wall to keep all those bad guys with guns and bombs out while we sort through this thing.
The whole thing becomes frighteningly reminiscent of the swirling mass of conflict in Southeast Asia during the sixties and seventies. While the U.S. military was busy trying to reassert democracy in Vietnam, governments in Laos and Cambodia suffered the chaos of civil war and internal strife. In 1965, Cambodia broke off relations with the United States and turned instead to the People's Republic of China and the U.S.S.R. for relief. It is probably no coincidence that 1965 also brought the first wave of U.S. combat troops to Vietnam. "We" trained and fought with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. "They" supplied, trained and supported the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Viet Cong. These were the heady days of the Cold War, and the "Domino Principle", in which it was America's responsibility to stop the Red Menace from sweeping the continent. In 1972, we left, and three years later Saigon fell to the communists.
Thirty-plus years later, the U.S. is attempting to plant the seed of democracy in a desert. The question should not be why the Iranians are becoming more involved in this conflict, the question should be "What took them so long?"