Here's a newsflash from Iraq that will make some people's heads explode. Juan Cole reports:
Iran's foreign minister, Manuchehr Mottaki, strongly backed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's attack on the Mahdi Army militia on Wednesday. He said, "Weapons should be only in the hands of the Iraqi army." The Iraqi army appears increasingly to be dominated by cadres of the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, headed by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. The Badr Corps was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and it and ISCI are key Iranian clients in Iraq. What Mottaki said therefore makes complete sense. What doesn't make sense is the Bush administration's long-term effort to misrepresent the nativist Sadr Movement and its Mahdi Army, based in Iraq's festering slums, as Iran-backed.
It is precisely the closeness of the al-Maliki government and its primary current pillar, ISCI, to Iran that has made Sunni Arab countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia skittish about allowing it into the Arab League system as a full diplomatic partner. The Sunni Arab states largely do not have embassies in Baghdad, and Iraqi Shiites accuse them or their populations of surreptitiously helping Iraqi Sunni Arab guerrillas.
What also doesn't make sense is the Bush administration's long-term effort to paint the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as anti-Iranian, as well as its effort to paint the Iranians as the source of most if not all of our problems in the region. If al-Maliki has the support of Iran against al Sadr, and if our goal is to create an Iraq with minimal Iranian influence, doesn't that mean things are far more complicated than the Bush administration narrative would suggest? Our problem with al-Sadr isn't that he's pro-Iran. Our problem with him is that he is an Iraqi nationalist who opposes our presence in his country. And therein lies the paradox: if our goal was to produce an Iraq that served as a bulwark against Iran (you know, like what we had when Saddam was in power), then al-Sadr might not be a bad choice. But he won't let us build bases in Iraq, and we need those bases to contain Iran, so instead we've turned to al-Maliki. Except that al-Maliki is directly supported by Iran, so.... good times!
Worth remembering: Iran wants to see both al Qaeda and the Taliban destroyed. That's why, for example, they provided the United States with extensive logistical support in the early days of the war in Afghanistan. Rather than see that as an opening for a new relationship with the Iranians, however, we declared them part of the Axis of Evil and then doubled down with a new war in Iraq. Rather than constrain the Iranians, however, it has enabled them, simultaneously increasing their power throughout the region and increasing their mistrust of us. Through our deliberate actions, we got the worst of all possible worlds. Brilliant, no?
Subscribe to this blog's feed
