One week ago today we were sitting in the lobby of our hotel in Amman,
Jordan, talking with the very smart and well-informed Middle East
analyst Joost Hiltermann about the interactions that US power now has
in and over Iraq with Iraq’s much weightier eastern neighbor,
Iran. (Hiltermann has worked on Iraq-related issues for many
years, including for several years now as the senior Iraq analyst for
the International Crisis Group.)
He said,
things inside today’s Iraq– but they disagree on one key thing.
What they agree on, at least until now, is the unity of Iraq, and need
for democracy or at least some form of majority rule there.
What they disagree on is the continued US troop presence there. Because the US basically now wants
to be able to withdraw those troops, and Iran wants them to stay!
He conjectured that the main reason Iran wants the US troops to stay in
Iraq is because they are deployed there, basically, as sitting ducks
who would be extremely vulnerable to Iranian military retaliation in
the event of any US (or Israeli) military attack on Iran. They
are, in effect, Iran’s best form of insurance against the launching of
any such attack.
I have entertained that conjecture myself, too, on numerous occasions
in the past. So I was interested that Hiltermann not only voiced
it, but also framed it in such an elegant way. (For my part, I am
slightly less convinced than he is that the decisionmakers in the Bush
administration at this point
are clear that they want the US troops out of Iraq… But I think they
are headed toward that conclusion, and that the developments in the
region will certainly continue to push them that way.)
From this point of view, we might conclude that the decisionmakers in
Teheran– some of whom are strategic thinkers with much greater
experience and even technical expertise than anyone in the current Bush
administration– would be seeing the possibility of “allowing” the US
to withdraw its troops from Iraq only within the context of the kind of
“grand bargain” that Teheran seeks. The first and overwhelmingly
most important item in that “grand bargain” would be that Washington
credibly and irrevocably back off from any thought of pursuing a
strategy of regime change inside Iran or from any threats of military
force against it.
Under this bargain, Washington would need to agree, fundamentally, that
despite serious continuing disagreements in many areas of policy, it
would deal with the regime that exists in Teheran– as in earlier
decades it dealt with the regime that existed in the Soviet Union–
rather than seeking to overthrow it. Teheran might well also ask
for more than that– including some easing of the US campaign against
it over the nuclear issue, etc. But I believe there is no way the
mullahs in Teheran could settle for any less than a basic normalization
of working relations with Washington– that would most likely be
exemplified by the restoration of normal diplomatic relations between
the two governments– in return for “allowing” the US troops to
withdraw from Iraq.
There are numerous paradoxes here. Not only has Washington’s wide
distribution of its troops throughout the Iraq has become a strategic
liability, rather than an asset, but now the heirs of the same Iranian
regime that stormed the US Embassy in the 1970s and violated all the
norms of diplomatic protocol by holding scores of diplomats as hostages
there are the ones who are, essentially, clamoring for the restoration
of diplomatic relations with Washington.
… Meantime, however, a great part of the steely, pre-negotiation
dance of these two wilful powers is being played out within the borders
of poor, long-suffering Iraq. For the sake of the Iraqis, I hope
Washington and Teheran resolve their issues and move to the normal
working relationship of two fully adult powers as soon as possible.
One last footnote here. I do see some intriguing possibilities
within the Bushites’ repeated use of the mantra that “All options are
still on the table” regarding Iran. Generally, that has been
understood by most listeners (and most likely intended by its utterers) to mean
that what is “on the table of possibilities” is all military options– up to
and perhaps even including nuclear military options, which the Bushites
have never explicitly taken off the table with regard to Iran.
But why should we not also interpret “all options” to include also all diplomatic options?
That would certainly be an option worth pursuing.
- (This post has been cross-posted to the Nation’s blog, The Notion.)
You talk about how Iran wants the U.S. army to stay in Iraq at least until some kind of grand bargain is reached. But I would gamble that, bargain or no bargain, Iran certainly does not view it as in their long-term strategic interest to have a neighboring state with extreme poverty, instability, and radiating violence.
Though the instability of Iraq threatens the Gulf politicians more than the Iranian regime, still there is no way Iran could view it as positive that their fellow Shia are being killed in the dozens every day, with even pilgrims being targeted. Iran has made huge leaps in its foreign influence from Iraq to Afghanistan to the Maghreb, largely as a result of the failures of U.S. policy, and is expanding energy production. In this context, I can see how the Iranian regime might be both very concerned about Iraq but at the same time unwilling to accept what is seen as an unfair deal with the U.S. to stabilize the situation (ie. giving up the right to enrichment).
Jill Carroll Returns to Middle East — One Year After Abduction
I’m puzzled by this theory too on multiple counts. So we’re to disregard all the volumes of Iranians statements from day one suggesting thanks for getting rid of Saddam, but grave concern about US long term intentions? (e.g., Rumsfeld’s declarations of “permanent” US bases in Iraq, etc.)
Remember too when Khatami here at UVA last September rather coyly suggested the US shouldn’t leave from Iraq too quickly – as it might precipitate a dangerous regional vacuum. I highly doubt he was thinking that well, let’s keep the US tied down in Iraq so they can’t invade Iran.
Iranians were also very quick to warn (presciently) that the longer the US stayed, the more the US presence would become a source of discontent and instability. (just as Columbia’s Hamid Dabashi predicted early on on NewsHour – naturally, his reward for being so accurate was to never be invited back to the NewsHour. Sorry David B. Prove me wrong.)
This whole theory, while “interesting, seems too much the stretch and has to igore far more compelling evidence to the contrary – that Iran really would prefer to see US out of Iraq sooner, rather than later.
Well anyway, speaking of J.H., here’s an excellent essay of his in tomorrow’s Monitor on what “soft partition” idea won’t work for Iraq.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0312/p09s02-coop.html?page=1
This one is far more convincing, at least to me. :-}
The Ghadaffi regime in Libya was also once a target of US “regime change” aspirations until Ghadaffi gave up his nuclear ambitions and joined the economic “club”. All this happened under the W Admin so it’s hard to see a good reason why it couldn’t happen again with Iran?
Regardless of rhetoric, all countries make decisions on what they perceive is their regime’s self interest and what they think they can get away with – the Iranian Government is no different. I think the odds are better than even money that Iran will drive the hardest bargain it can … and diplomatic relations will be re-opened with US before W’s term expires, or shortly thereafter.
escott,
While most of your thoughts looks right, but Iran behaviours in Iraq really puzzling.
Most those in the regime in Iraq now was founded and supported by Iranians from early 1980, they can’t simply turned their back to Iranians, there are defiantly some very close business between them and Iranians.
Same Iraqi regime guys have supported and shakes hands with US priors to the invasion, they rewarded by US for that, in other side they still have strong channels of relation to Iran (specially Khatami) so there are backdoors channels between US and Iran, what we don’t know what’s exactly they talking and what are the demands?
I can not judge and believe US or Iranians from the volumes of statements that flying from time to time, the point here US needs to be in the region for a long term without troubles, Iranian find themselves they can play the Chess here again in the region and they still have their interests of dominating the region, but don’t forgot they helped US in Afghanistan also.
So the time will tell what’s under the seen today but I believe there is compromise process between the two but each one pull his strings to get better deals on Iraq and Iraqi cost.
To me Iraq and Iraqi are the looser in the end.
Today this article has good points about Iranian with Iraqis.
ثلاثة أخطاء إيرانية في العراق
if you need to read more form Walied Al-Zubaydi here
From MER:
Shia in the Arab World
https://mymail.yorku.ca/horde/imp/message.php?index=29043
Apologies, please remove the link above-it was incorrectly placed. Here is the piece I intended to submit.
Middle East Report 242
Spring 2007
THE SHI’A IN THE ARAB WORLD
Twin specters hang over the Middle East — the perceived rise in the
geopolitical power of Shi’i Muslims and the dark shadow of the sectarian
reprisals driving the Iraqi civil war. In the palaces of “moderate,”
US-allied Arab leaders, these developments are regarded as omens of a
“Shiite crescent” emanating from Iran. In the US media, they are taken as
fresh proof that Middle Eastern conflicts are intractable because they are,
at root, religious. The spring 2007 issue of Middle East Report, “The Shi’a
in the Arab World,” questions the utility of sectarian analysis for
understanding the turmoil in the region.
At the beginning of the 2006 Lebanon war, the “moderate” (and Sunni) Arab
regimes condemned Shi’i Hizballah for its “adventurism,” leading many
analysts to pronounce the end of traditional pan-Arab solidarity. Popular
sympathy with Hizballah across the Arab world quickly compelled the regimes
to change their tune. This sequence of events, say Morten Valbjorn and Andre
Bank, suggests that the rift in the region is not primarily sectarian. They
argue instead that a “new Arab cold war,” reminiscent of the 1950s, has
emerged.
The Shi’a of the Arab world are not the undifferentiated mass conjured by
the phrase “Shiite crescent.” Mona Harb shows that Harat Hurayk, the Beirut
suburb portrayed as somehow foreign to Lebanon because it is a “Hizballah
stronghold,” is intimately linked to the country as a whole. Fawwaz Trabulsi
and Elias Khoury discuss the sociological, as well as the confessional,
dimensions of the current standoff between the Lebanese government and the
Hizballah-led opposition.
In the Gulf countries, too, local factors explain politics better than the
transnational divide within Islam. Reidar Visser lays out the remarkable
diversity of political programs among the Shi’i Islamist parties of Basra.
Sandy Russell Jones explores the complex interplay among the programs of
women’s rights activists, Shi’i Islamists and the state in the battle over
family law in Bahrain. Toby Jones pinpoints the origins of sectarian
tensions in Saudi Arabia — not in the aspirations of the Shi’i community,
but in the bargain between the ultra-conservative Sunni clergy and the
regime.
Also featured: Hossam el-Hamalawy seeks the roots of recent cooperation
between young Egyptian leftists and their counterparts in the Muslim
Brotherhood; Robert Vitalis reviews Rachel Bronson’s Thicker Than Oil; and
more.
Subscribe to Middle East Report or order individual copies online at
http://www.merip.org.
For further information, contact Chris Toensing at ctoensing@merip.org.
Middle East Report is published by the Middle East Research and Information
Project (MERIP), a progressive, independent organization based in
Washington, DC. Since 1971 MERIP has provided critical analysis of the
Middle East, focusing on political economy, popular struggles and the
implications of US and international policy for the region.
وكشف مسؤول في القيادة العامة للقوات المسلحة الإيرانية انقطاع الاتصالات بين احد كبار ضباط “فيلق القدس” في العراق وطهران منذ 3 أسابيع.
وقال المصدر لصحيفة “الشرق الأوسط” اللندنية الأربعاء 14-3-2007، انه من غير الواضح بعد الأسباب وراء اختفاء العسكري العقيد أمير محمد محسن شيرازي.
لكنه أضاف “إن من المحتمل أن تكون القوات الأميركية في العراق اعتقلته ضمن مجموعة من ثمانية ضباط في الحرس الثوري وفيلق القدس وخمسة من عناصر وزارة الاستخبارات الايرانية منتشرين في العراق”.
http://www.alarabiya.net/Articles/2007/03/14/32545.htm
قال شهود عيان ان القنصلية الامركية تعرضت الى هجوم مكثف بقذافف الهاون في الساعة العاشرة مساء يوم الثلاثاء يقدر عدد القذائف الذ ي سقطت على مقر القنصلية حوالي 15 قذيفة هاون واضاف الشاهد ان اصوات الانفجارات هشمت زجاج الدور المجاورة للقنصلية والذي تتخذ فندق بابل مقرا لها المطل على شط الحلة ولم يعرف حجم الخسائر بعد ولم يصدر اي تعليق من قبل القوات الامريكية .