Tehran's Influence Grows As Iraqis See Advantages

**xerxes** · 29 Jan 07,, 04:13

Tehran's Influence Grows As Iraqis See Advantages

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 26, 2007; Page A01

washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines

BAGHDAD, Jan. 25 -- When Fadhil Abbas determined that his mother's astigmatism required surgery, they did not consider treatment in his home town of Najaf, in southern Iraq. Instead they joined a four-taxi convoy of ailing Iraqis headed to Iran.

For more than two weeks last fall, Abbas, his sister and his mother were treated to free hotels, trips to the zoo and religious shrines, and his mother's $1,300 eye surgery at a hospital in Tehran, all courtesy of the offices of Moqtada al-Sadr, Iraq's ascendant Shiite Muslim cleric. Abbas returned to Najaf glowing over the technical prowess of Iran.

"When you look at this hospital, it is like something imaginary -- you wouldn't believe such a hospital like this exists," said Abbas, a 22-year-old college student. "Iran wants to help the patients in Iraq. Other countries don't want to let Iraqis in."

The increasingly common arrangement for sick or wounded Iraqis to receive treatment in Iran is just one strand in a burgeoning relationship between these two Persian Gulf countries. Thousands of Iranian pilgrims visit the Shiite holy cities in southern Iraq each year. Iran exports electricity and refined oil products to Iraq, and Iraqi vendors sell Iranian-made cars, air coolers, plastics and the black flags, decorated with colorful script, that Shiites are flying this week to celebrate the religious holiday of Ashura. But when President Bush and top U.S. officials speak of Iran's role in Iraq, their focus is more limited. U.S. officials accuse Iranian security forces, particularly the al-Quds Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards, of funneling sophisticated explosives to Iraqi guerrillas.

"We will not allow hegemony of a hostile regime to have power over this area," U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said this week.

But changing the "behavior" of the Iranian government, as Khalilzad proposes, collides with Iran's expanding influence in Iraq, which is built on deep cultural ties as well as personal and business relationships developed during the years that many leading Iraqi Shiite politicians spent in exile in Iran.

Iran has dispatched 56 diplomats to staff its embassy in Baghdad and consulates in Basra and Karbala. It maintains informal liaison offices in the Kurdish cities of Sulaymaniyah and Irbil, the latter of which was raided Jan. 11 by U.S. troops, who arrested five Iranians. Each day, Iran provides 1,000 tons of cooking gas, about 20 percent of the Iraqi demand, and 2 million liters of kerosene. Iran exports electricity through Iraq's Diyala province and plans to quadruple the amount with new projects, Iraqi officials say.

Iran has also extended a $1 billion line of credit to Iraq to help fund reconstruction and rebuilding. When Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and his delegation of ministers visited Iran in November, he asked for more help and said Iraq "would like to expand our relations in every field with the Islamic Republic of Iran."

"The economic power between the two countries, it's enormous," said Hassan Kazemi Qomi, Iran's ambassador to Iraq. "We can help them in technical issues and engineering. We have a lot of experience in building roads and airports."

Qomi works inside a stone embassy in a compound with lush gardens and spear-wielding statuary just outside the fortified Green Zone, the seat of U.S. power in Iraq. When he speaks of the Americans, he calls them "the others."

"As for our policy, it's clear and it's going forward. We are happy with the Iraqi government," Qomi said at a recent news conference. "The kidnapping of our diplomats will have no effect at all on our help and cooperation with the Iraqi side. . . . We are only at the first stages of this support."

Qomi said the presence of American troops in Iraq "has increased the instability, increased the killing of innocent people and inflamed the sectarian violence."

"If we want to establish security in Iraq, the Iraqi government should take security into its own hands," he said. "Unfortunately, the others don't want that to happen."

Caught between the United States and Iran is Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister. "I'm treading a very thin line," he said last week over tea in his office. Zebari says he believes Iran wants a stable government in Iraq, along with the departure of U.S. troops, but is worried that a full-scale civil war could spill over Iraq's borders.

Iran supports the two largest Shiite political parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, U.S. officials have said. But Iran also negotiates with Kurdish and Sunni politicians and sometimes bypasses the central government to forge agreements with Iraqi provinces, Zebari said.

"Historically that has been their attitude, to bet on every horse. And they have changed their support from one group to another," Zebari said.

Some analysts say the violence and instability in Iraq attract more Iranian involvement, not less, as Iran positions itself to be on the winning side of a sectarian war.

"The whole Gulf system is turned upside down, and everybody is trying to figure out how they situate themselves in it," said Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to traditional relationships in the Persian Gulf region. Iranian support is "part of the program of strengthening the Shia community to resist and expand its influence, and become a successful combatant in a civil war."

For the Iraqi government, it has been a frustrating strategy. "Instead of diversifying your support or aid to different groups, militias, political leaders, if you're sincere in your commitment to see this government succeed, why don't you give all this assistance and money and weapons and training directly to the government?" Zebari said.

Iran has driven a wedge between Iraq and the United States. Last month, when U.S. troops seized two Iranian officials inside the Baghdad compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of SCIRI, the Iraqi government intervened and the United States freed them. After U.S. troops seized five more Iranian officials from the liaison office in Irbil, the Iraqi government again appealed for their release -- so far unsuccessfully -- saying the men worked in an approved office providing consular services.

In both cases, U.S. officials accused some of the Iranians of being operatives with the al-Quds Brigade, which the Americans say arms and trains terrorist groups outside Iran, including the Lebanese organization Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, which is active in the Palestinian territories. Both the Iraqis and Iranians have asked the United States for proof of clandestine activities.

U.S. officials decided to escalate their tactics against Iran after public denunciations of Iran's alleged military activities, along with attempts to "harden" Iraq's security forces to repel Iranian influence, failed to produce satisfactory results, Khalilzad said. "We've come to the view that we need to do more than that, we need to go after their networks," he said.

During the rule of Saddam Hussein, who oppressed Iraq's Shiites and fought an eight-year war against Iran, Iraqi Shiite dissidents in exile, especially SCIRI and its armed wing, the Badr Brigade, found welcome help from Iranian security forces.

"We know what the relationship between SCIRI, Badr and the Iranian institutions were in those days. Now it's a different situation," Khalilzad said. The Iraqi government is no longer "an opposition movement in need of support from the security agencies of a neighboring state, so there is a need for adaptation in terms of what's appropriate in terms of a relationship."

Iraqi officials are sharply divided in their perceptions of Iran's intentions in Iraq. Hussein al-Falluji, a Sunni member of parliament, said Iranian influence exceeds that of the United States, but it is "hidden, and is heading toward targeting vital joints of the Iraqi state."

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, said, "Iran is networking aggressively inside Iraq in every aspect of life, including the security aspect."

Mariam Rayis, a foreign affairs adviser to Maliki, dismissed as paranoia U.S. assertions about Iran's "dark involvement" in Iraq. "These neighbors can help us for a while until we can have new construction here," she said. "We have noticed that there is moral support from Iran."

Special correspondents Naseer Nouri in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.

**Ray** · 29 Jan 07,, 08:51

That Malliki and the Shias will veer to Iran is a foregone conclusion given the historical animosity of the Sunnis towards the Shias and vice versa.

The Shias have, for the first time in Iraq's history, even though they were always the majority, gained the upper hand over the Sunnis by a quirk of fate.

It is obvious that they will seek their natural allies and Iran is but the natural ally in a sea of Sunnis in Arabia.

The Shias, even though they are in power, are still mortified by the possibility that the Sunnis through the influence of the Sunni Arab nations with the US, may wrest the power in Iraq.

Hence, Malliki, while pretending to appease the US concerns, will work very hard to break the back of the Sunnis (as they are doing with their death squads), as also build up ties with Iran underhand so that if the push come to shove, at least Southern Iraq and the oilfields remain in Iraqi Shia hands!

The dream of the Shia Crescent from Western Afghanistan to Syria and Lebanon encompassing Eastern Saudi Arabia and its oilfields is very alluring!

However, the US may have some other agenda!

So I believe!

**Ray** · 29 Jan 07,, 20:08

Iranian Reveals Plan to Expand Role in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/wo...html?th&emc=th

**xerxes** · 29 Jan 07,, 20:31

Originally Posted by Ray

The dream of the Shia Crescent from Western Afghanistan to Syria and Lebanon encompassing Eastern Saudi Arabia and its oilfields is very alluring!

However, the US may have some other agenda!

So I believe!

i wonder how historians 1,000 years from now would think of the war on terror, the Shia Crescent and all these things

**highsea** · 29 Jan 07,, 20:34

Originally Posted by xerxes

i wonder how historians 1,000 years from now would think of the war on terror, the Shia Crescent and all these things

I suspect that depends entirely on who prevails, as it's always the winners who write the histories...

**xerxes** · 29 Jan 07,, 20:55

^^^

not entirely .... 1,000 years is a long time ... all the effects should be dampened by then .. if it were in 100 years it is understandable to be the function of who won!!!

probably in 1,000 years it will referred to as the end of the Age of Superpowers. Perhapes not, it will be more like begeninig of the end of the Age of Superpowers or perhapes it will be reffered to as end of the begeninig of the Age of Superpowers. ... and maybe the war of terror will be dissected and will be presented in its naked form ... a mis-adventure and an out-of-synch colonial war on part of America. .... just kidding

or maybe the George Bush's war of terror will be presented like the adventure Marcus Crassus of Rome into Parthia - a small dot on the historical timeline .. whether America can go back to its pre-Iraq greatness and add to its majesty like Rome did after Marcus Crassus, that would intresting to see

**astralis** · 30 Jan 07,, 01:37

if you're guessing that far into the future...

in most likelihood, though, the war in iraq likely results in only medium-term consequences and impact on america- even taking the worse scenario. and vice-versa. the war is not all that costly to america, even in the short-term (social benefits take out a lot more).

if anything, a wildly successful (and very unlikely to happen) iraq project, leading to massive democratization, free markets, and a renaissance in the islamic world, would mean the re-vitalization of the middle east. this would represent yet another potential "balance" against american power.

in the long-term, the fundamental trend lines- that of the re-emergence of a very populous asia (both east and south)- is not affected by the iraq war. as col yu mentioned in the other thread, either we succeed...or the chinese and russians do it for us.

**darth_malick** · 30 Jan 07,, 03:06

A bit off topic but.

I think it will mark the begining of the end of US dominance over world affairs. Although they will still continue to have a huge technological and Military advantage over rivals.

Do you think their economy can survive a Democratic Middle-East and Emerging Chinese and Indian Economies.

Basically the emergence of many of the South and East Nations.

The economies of the West are declining, the economic situation enjoyed by the average citizen in NA or the EU is in peril. Exploitation of cheap labour and resources has always proved to be a temporary means of staying on top.

If the above mentioned economies run into oil shortages or recession, it could remove their ability to sustain the military dominance. This weakens influence and paves the way for collapse.

It is just an observation that I would like to share and read other points of view on.

**astralis** · 30 Jan 07,, 19:59

"In Basra today the currency is the Iranian toman, not the Iraqi dinar." He said his convoys now are forced to pay a 40% surcharge to Shi'a militias and Iraqi police in the south, many of whom are affiliated with IRGC.

----

Are the Iranians Out for Revenge? -- Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007 -- Page 1 -- TIME

Are the Iranians Out for Revenge?

The speed and level of chaos in Iraq is picking up fast. An apocalyptic cult came uncomfortably close to taking Najaf, one of Shi'a Islam's most holy cities, and murdering Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Sistani is the neo-cons' favorite quietist Shi'a cleric, the man who was supposed to keep Iraq's Shi'a in line while we went about nation building. And then, on Sunday, Iran's ambassador to Baghdad told the New York Times that Iran is in Iraq to stay, whether the Bush Administration likes it or not.

And that's not the worst of it. American forces still hold five members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Arrested by American forces in Erbil on Jan. 11, the Administration has accused the five IRGC members of helping the Iraqi opposition kill Americans.

I've written here before that the IRGC has a long history of calculated violence against its enemies, particularly the United States. The Administration's accusations are plausible. But at the same time the U.S. needs to remember what a serious spoiler the IRGC can be when provoked.

In July 1982, after a Christian Lebanese militia kidnapped the Iranian charge d'affaires in Beirut, the IRGC set in motion a campaign of retaliatory kidnappings, hijackings and assassinations against the U.S. and the West. The Iranian charge was a senior IRGC officer, and the IRGC had no intention of letting his kidnapping go unanswered. The IRGC campaign lasted for more than 10 years and dragged the U.S. into Iran-contra and the arms-for-hostages deal that nearly brought down the Reagan Administration.

Some Iraqis speculate that the IRGC has already started a campaign of revenge with the killing of five American soldiers in Karbala on Jan. 20, nine days after the arrest of the IRGC members in Erbil. As the logic of the rumor goes, five American soldiers were killed for five Iranians taken; Karbala was an IRGC message to release its colleagues — or else.

The speculation that Karbala was an IRGC operation may have as much to do with Iraqis' respect for IRGC capacity for revenge as it does with the truth. Nevertheless, we should count on the IRGC gearing up for a fight. And we shouldn't underestimate its capacities. Aside from arming the opposition, the IRGC is capable of doing serious damage to our logistics lines. I called up an American contractor in Baghdad who runs convoys from Kuwait every day and asked him just how much damage."Let me put it this way," he said. "In Basra today the currency is the Iranian toman, not the Iraqi dinar." He said his convoys now are forced to pay a 40% surcharge to Shi'a militias and Iraqi police in the south, many of whom are affiliated with IRGC.

Mindful of the spreading chaos in Iraq, President Bush has promised not to take the war into Iran. But it won't matter to the IRGC. There is nothing the IRGC likes better than to fight a proxy war in another country.

Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down.

**texasjohn** · 04 Feb 07,, 03:26

This from CNN:
Former military chiefs urge talks with Iran - CNN.com

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Three former senior U.S. military officials warn that any military action against Iran would have "disastrous consequences" and urged Washington to hold immediate and unconditional talks with Tehran.

The Bush administration has increased the regularity and vehemence of its accusations against Iran, prompting speculation it could be laying the ground for military attack against the Islamic state.

Washington has also sent a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, a move seen as a warning to Iran, which the United States accuses of seeking atomic arms and fueling instability in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Iran denies the charges.

In a letter to London's Sunday Times newspaper, the three former U.S. military leaders said attacking Iran "would have disastrous consequences for security in the region, coalition forces in Iraq and would further exacerbate regional and global tensions," they wrote.

"The current crisis must be resolved through diplomacy," they said.

The letter was signed by retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, a former military assistant to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command; and retired Navy Vice Adm. Jack Shanahan, a former director of the Center for Defense Information.

They urged the U.S. government to "engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions.

"There is time available to talk, we must ensure that we use it," they said.

The three men have joined previous petitions calling on the Bush administration to change course in its policy on Iran.

Washington broke ties with Iran in 1980. It has offered to hold direct talks with Iran but only once Tehran halts its drive to produce nuclear fuel through uranium enrichment.

Iran, which says it wants to enrich uranium to make nuclear reactor fuel, not bombs, has refused.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday said Washington was not planning for war with Iran, but again accused Tehran of supplying bombs for deadly attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq.

The question being - what do we gain by NOT wanting to talk to Iran?

**Ray** · 09 Feb 07,, 17:44

An example of Iran's influence but under US pressure being kept under check.

Iraq’s No. 2 Health Official Is Held and Accused of Financing Shiite Militants

By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: February 9, 2007

BAGHDAD, Feb. 8 — Iraqi and American troops arrested the second highest official in the Iraqi Health Ministry on Thursday, charging that he funneled millions of dollars to rogue Shiite militants who kidnapped and killed Iraqi civilians.

The United States military said in a statement that the official was suspected of using his position to run a rogue unit of the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that claims loyalty to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr. The statement accused the official of flooding the Health Ministry’s payroll with militants, embezzling American money meant to pay for Iraq’s overworked medical system and using Health Ministry “facilities and services for sectarian kidnapping and murder.”

The military’s statement did not identify the official, but several Iraqi government officials said he was Deputy Health Minister Hakim al-Zamili, a Shiite with longstanding ties to the Sadr organization. An Interior Ministry official said the authorities in recent weeks had come to believe that Mr. Zamili was using government ambulances to ferry weapons and militants across Sadr City, hiding them from American raids.

Mr. Zamili’s detainment was the latest of several high-profile arrests or killings of commanders from the Mahdi Army in recent weeks. He was the fifth Iraqi deputy or cabinet level official to be arrested and charged with corruption since 2003, according to Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity, and the first known example of a senior Iraqi official charged with directly contributing to the country’s convulsive sectarian violence.

He was arrested as new Iraqi Army and police checkpoints appeared all over Baghdad as part of the new security plan for the city. Though it was unclear whether Mr. Zamili’s arrest was part of the new plan, it underscored the challenge that American troops faced as they tried to secure the capital while relying on an Iraqi government with questionable loyalties.

The Health Ministry is one of six ministries controlled by officials affiliated with Mr. Sadr. And even as Iraqi hospital officials complain of medicine and equipment shortages, the ministry has often been the site of dramatic kidnappings and killings.

In November, Mr. Zamili’s predecessor, Ammar al-Saffar, a Shiite, was kidnapped by at least 24 gunmen wearing the uniforms of Interior Ministry policemen. Though he was abducted in a Sunni neighborhood, there were questions at the time about whether he had been removed by Shiite rivals.

Neither American nor Iraqi officials connected Mr. Zamili to Mr. Saffar’s kidnapping, but the American statement said the arrested official was implicated in the deaths of several Health Ministry officials, including a director general in Diyala Province.

Though the statement from the American military said Iraqi forces had made the arrest, witnesses said American Humvees flooded the ministry building about 9 a.m., firing warning shots into the air and breaking windows before seizing Mr. Zamili, several guards and important paperwork in his office.

Shiite officials said Mr. Zamili’s arrest was an affront to Iraqi sovereignty. The health minister, Ali al-Shammari, called the arrest an abduction and demanded proof to support the charges against his deputy.

Bahar al-Araji, one of 30 members of the Sadr bloc in Parliament, said American troops should have sought permission to search the ministry from the prime minister or an Iraqi court.

“This is not an attack on the Sadr organization,” he said. “It’s an attack on the Iraqi government.”

His comments suggested that the Sadr organization planned to stand by its stated policy of refusing to outwardly fight American and Iraqi troops as the security plan moves through Baghdad. In recent weeks, Sadr officials have repeatedly sought to show that the Mahdi Army is only a defensive organization that aims to protect Shiite residents from Sunni attacks.

The American military also said in a statement that an airstrike in Anbar Province on two suspected safe houses for foreign fighters killed 13 insurgents. But witnesses said the airstrike flattened four houses, killing at least 35 people, including women and children. There was no immediate way to confirm either claim.

Witnesses said the site of the airstrike, a mostly Sunni Arab area northeast of Amiriya, near Falluja, had been the site of vicious battles between fighters with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and local tribes. One tribal leader said the clashes started because Al Qaeda wanted tribal leaders to join its fight, and they refused.

Violence also continued to rage near the capital, with news agencies reporting that gunmen killed 14 men from the same Sunni family just north of Baghdad.

The United States military announced that four marines were killed Wednesday in separate episodes in Anbar Province. Seven other people were killed the same day when a Marine transport helicopter crashed in an insurgent-heavy region northwest of Baghdad.

And in what appeared to be a rare case of cross-sectarian solidarity, the police in Diyala Province said a family of 25 Shiites — moving from a Sunni area after receiving death threats — was saved from death on Thursday when their Sunni neighbors repelled an insurgent ambush. Iraqi security forces were called in to help, and continued the battle, killing six gunmen.

Reporting was contributed by Ahmad Fadam, Wisam A. Habeeb, Hosham Hussein, Khalid al-Ansary and Qais Mizher.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/wo...ld&oref=slogin

This is the tip of the iceberg of the manner in which the internecine struggle is far from being calmed in the interest of the nationhood.

There is no doubt that religion and sect comes first and not the loyalty to the nation. And to believe that a Shia minister of a Shia led govt of a Shia majority country is at the fountainhead to stoke the flames of insurrection and defeat the very nation they inherited from the Sunni minority, under whose boot they had subsisted! One can only say it is unfortunate.

In such a climate, one wonders what will be the outcome of Iraq and one also wonders how many more years the US will waste it's effort in manpower, finances and lives for these people!

Iraq is a hope against hope!