Sunday, October 15, 2006

The mystery of US policies on Iran and Iraq

I just made a long post at The Blue Voice on the current rumors and speculation about a possible American-backed coup against the government in Baghdad to which the US is currently allied.

Part of the context of that speculation is the mystery of what Cheney and Bush intend to do against Iran.  If they plan a military strike against Iran in the next few weeks or months, that would greatly increase the urgency from their point of view of having a securely pro-American, anti-Iranian government in Iraq.  Steve Gilliard graphically illustrates this with a post on Bombing Iran.

There are other reasons, of course, primarily the badly deteriorating military and political situation in Iraq itself.  Juan Cole writes today in his Informed Comment blog:

Aljazeera early Sunday morning is reporting that the people of Dhuluiyah are defending themselves from invading militiamen.  It appears that the Shiite militias marched on Dhuluiyah after their massacre of Sunnis at Balad.  [The Washington Post] reported that the former had been arming themselves and preparing for such an attack.

This sort of open militia violence between cities such as Dhuluiyah and Balad was the sort of thing I was afraid would happen if the US withdrew precipitately.  If, however, 141,000 US troops are actually in the country near to these events and they cannot stop company-sized attacks, then they really should depart.  Their presence is causing a lot of resentment and violence to begin with, and if it isn't offset by effective action to stop militia reprisal killings, it is a net negative.

Good relations between the Shi'a government of Iran and the Shi'a-dominated government of Iraq are nothing new, of course.  This is another sign of the continuing improvement of that relationship:

Iran and Iraq to strengthen security and intelligence ties Kaleej Times Online/AFP 10/15/06

According to that report:

Iraq and Iran have formed a working group to build closer security and intelligence ties, the Iraqi government announced Sunday, despite US concerns over Teheran’s role in the country.

Iraqi National Security Advisor Muwaffaq Al Rubaie and his Iranian counterpart Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, minister of security and intelligence, recently discussed putting into effect a prior deal to share intelligence.

“The two sides agreed to form a working group to lay down suitable mechanisms to implement the agreement to strengthen security and intelligence cooperation,” said a statement issued by the Iraqi cabinet.

The United States, which maintains 142,000 troops in Iraq, has expressed concern over what it describes as Iran’s role in fuelling the deadly violence sweeping Iraq and has accused Teheran of smuggling weapons to Iraqi militias.

Iran, like the US to a large extent has been supporting the Shi'a in Iraq in their civil war against the Sunnis.  Part of the thinking behind the coup threats, and the recent complaint from a senior Shi'a spokesman that the US was backing the Sunnis, is that the US is trying to tilt more to the Sunnis to stabilize the situation.  If a near-term attack on Iran is planned, switching to support of the Sunnis makes even more sense.  That is, it makes sense in the context of a doomed policy rolling down the tracks to complete collapse, not in the larger sense of being good for the United States.

The AFP report also says:

The US embassy in Iraq did not have a specific comment on the move towards closer intelligence and security relations between the two countries, but continued to express concern about Iranian activities.

“We have always maintained that Iraq should have normal relations with all its neighbors,” said embassy spokesman Lou Fintor. “We have long made clear our concerns about Iranian activities inside Iraq.”

Iran, in fact, was actively supportive of much of US policy in Iraq.  US policies empowered the Shi'a majority, which Iran saw as very much in their interests given the close ties and affinities between the Iranian Shi'a and the Iraqi Shi'a groups.

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