SPEAKING
FREELY The dilemmas of Iran's policy toward
Iraq By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
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As the
occupation forces battle Shi'ite insurgents in several
Iraqi cities, most notably in the holy cities of Karbala
and Najaf in what a United States general has admittedly
described as a "minor uprising", the question of Iran's
policy toward post-Saddam Hussein Iraq looms
particularly large in the policy circles of Washington
and London.
Is Iran playing a cooperative or
subversive role in Iraq today, or both at the same time,
and, if so, which side has the upper hand? What is the
nature of the connection between the Islamic Republic of
Iran and the current Shi'ite rebellion spearheaded by
junior cleric Muqtada al-Sadr? General Mark Kimmitt, the
top military spokesman in Baghdad, has recently said he
can't answer whether Muqtada's fighters are
state-sponsored. He is quoted by Associated Press,
however, as saying that it would be a mistake to call
Muqtada's militia Iranian-backed, manned or controlled.
But an increasing number of policy experts and members
of the US Congress are joining Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, who has repeatedly accused Iran of
"meddling" in Iraq. Critics of Iran, particularly those
affiliated with the pro-Israel think-tanks in
Washington, nowadays can be found aplenty on TV news
programs blaming Iran's revolutionary guards for setting
up training camps on the Iran-Iraq border for Muqtada's
"terrorists", as well as bankrolling the latter's
military campaign against the occupation armies.
Iran's officials deny these allegations and
insist, in the words of Iran's permanent representative
to the United Nations, "We seek a stable Iraq, the
return of sovereignty and the establishment of a
democratic and representative system." Backing words
with action, these officials point at Iran's "goodwill"
mediation effort tacitly approved by Washington and
initiated at London's request, and blame the occupation
forces for derailing it with their premature offensive
against Muqtada's militiamen.
In fact, Iran's
spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, incensed by
the desecration of holy cities in the hands of US
forces, has lashed out at "shameless and stupid" US
policy in Iraq, predicting, just as he had prior to
Iraq's invasion last year, that "sooner or later, the
Americans will be obliged to leave Iraq in shame and
humiliation". The ayatollah's tone is clearly different
from, to put it mildly, that of Iran's moderate
president, Mohammad Khatami, who recently criticized
Muqtada, albeit indirectly, for inciting rebellion and
thus jeopardizing the "security and well-being of
Shi'ites in Iraq". Last year, Muqtada, the scion of a
powerful clerical family, was shunned by Khatami and yet
warmly embraced by Ayatollah Khamenei, notwithstanding
the unconfirmed reports that Muqtada's mentor, Ayatollah
Kazim al-Haeri, who remains in exile in Iran, appointed
Muqtada as his representative in Iraq.
On the
whole, however, Muqtada evokes mixed feelings in Iran
and is viewed with caution, particularly by those who
emphasize his occasional anti-Iran diatribe as evidence
of his lack of trustworthiness. Iran's critics in
Washington, however, contend that Muqtada is firmly in
Iran's camp and his tactical maneuvers against Iran are
to shield him from being labeled as Iran's stooge. It
may well be that Iran is increasingly enamored of
Muqtada's militant anti-Americanism and his militiamen's
ability to withstand the US assault to eradicate them
from the scene, tilting increasingly in his direction
irrespective of their minor misgivings about him. A
pro-Muqtada drift inside Iran may actually be in the
offing, which can be nipped in the bud if - and only if
- his "minor uprising" is uprooted in the near future by
America's military might.
The question of Iran's
attitude or response toward the "al-Sadr phenomenon"
must be couched in the larger framework of Iran's
intention in Iraq. There are strong indications of an
Iranian "mixed-motive game" in Iraq, where the compliant
tendency of cooperation with the US design for a
transitional government inclusive of Shi'ite politicians
runs in tandem with a parallel tendency to foment
problems for the US government, which has labeled Iran
as part of its "axis of evil" and has pressured the
world community to deny Iran access to peaceful nuclear
technology, not to mention the United States' complicity
with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to eradicate
Palestinian rights in a carefully orchestrated
step-by-step strategy.
As a regional power
distressed by a post-September 11, 2001, security belt
stretching from Iraq to Afghanistan to bases in Turkey
and neighboring Central Asia, Iran's national-security
interests logically dictate against the entrenchment of
US power in Iraq, which has so far translated into new
bases near Iran's borders. Iran's options are limited,
however, and in the effort to stymie Washington's
perceived "neo-imperialist" objectives, Iran's
policymakers have pursued a complex, multi-faceted
agenda vis-a-vis Iraq that runs the gamut. It includes
covert and overt activities, networking with the Kurds,
Sunnis, and the various Shi'ite organizations and
centers of authority, such as the Dawn Party and the
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose
military wing, Badre Brigade, was trained in Iran over a
two-decade period.
There is nothing either
illogical nor necessarily contradictory about
overarching politics of influence, tapping into various
sources inside Iraq, nominally committed to the
political process promising to bring majority rule by
the Shi'ites down the road and, simultaneously, sowing
the seeds of rebellion, both to offset the anti-Iran
momentum of the US might and to enhance Iran's
diplomatic leverage with respect to not just the US but
also other powers, notably Saudi Arabia, jockeying for
influence in Iraq.
Meanwhile, in light of Iran's
official anti-imperialist ideology and formal commitment
to the struggle against a US-based unipolar world order,
inevitably the issue has been raised in Iran's policy
circles as to whether or not Iraq has the potential to
become the tombstone for American empire. The stakes in
Iraq are, indeed, very high not just for the Iraqi
people or the occupation forces, but also Iraq's
neighbors, including Iran, which must balance its fears
and concerns and the opportunities afforded in today's
Iraq. The problem is the script-in-action nature of the
fluid and highly unpredictable political process in
Iraq, the difficulties of sorting out short-term versus
long-term impact and policy consequences, eg of backing
or not backing the present Shi'ite rebellion, and the
equally difficult task of reconciling Iran's militant
ideology with the status quo dimensions of Iran's
current Iraq policy.
Concerning the latter, in
light of an open admission of certain Iranian
foreign-policy officials about the convergence of
Iranian and US interests in Iraq, particularly with
respect to a federal system based on rule of majority,
Iran is hard pressed between the Scylla of its own
ideology mandating continuous anti-American and
anti-imperialist courses of action and the Charybdis of
its national-security interests counseling alliance-type
cooperation with the United States toward a peaceful,
and fully integrated, Iraq. This "double bind" is
somewhat aggravated by the persistent suspicions about
America's ultimate aim in Iraq, ie, the reasonable fear
that a successful military campaign in Iraq can only
embolden Washington to heed the call of its pro-Zionist
pundits narrating about "total war" or "war to war".
Hence the prognostication of America's future military
behavior has been factored in Iran's policy reaction
toward Iraq, causing what appears to be a paradoxical
policy wherein contradictory elements of cooperation and
subversion go hand in hand.
As a clue to the
"internal wisdom" of the Iranian system, on the other
hand, the clerically dominated ruling elite has
successfully disarmed Washington's ability to manipulate
Iranian politics in the name of democracy, principally
by the not-so-quiet "revanchist" parliamentary coup of
this past February, which excluded the liberalist
politicians and set up a more unified, and coherent,
system, self-immunized from influences from the without.
This "regrouping", dictated mainly though not
exclusively by the welter of national-security worries,
may turn out to haunt the ruling elite at some point in
the future, but for now it has enhanced the process of
foreign-policy making by centralizing it. One of its
side-effects, unfortunately, has been a relative poverty
of security discourse in Iran, at least at the public
level, as evidenced by the paucity of discussion of
vital national-security issues and concerns in Tehran's
dailies.
For the moment, however, that appears
to be a minor price to pay for what is really at stake
with respect to the US-Iran games of strategy spanning
the entire region; the game, complex in nature and
containing various security, geo-strategic and
geo-economic components, and input by several other
players, both regional and non-regional, requires a
flexible and creative response from Iran, tuned to the
survival strategy of Iran and its short-term and
long-term role in the region and beyond. It requires,
among other things, subtle and sophisticated risk
management, so that, to single out one example, its
exploitation of the anti-American Shi'ite uprising does
not backfire and lessen mainstream Shi'ites' political
influence in Iraq or, vice-versa, its status quo
approach does not turn it blind to the historic
opportunity at the present time to steepen the intrusive
Western superpower in a deeper quagmire offsetting its
anti-Iran proclivity.
As there is no quick fix
in Iraq, the clerical rulers of Iran have clearly opted
for a complex agenda that may one day sink in the
quagmire of its own incoherence, but for now that danger
is glued together by the paradoxical realities of Iraq
indicating a long-term presence of US power and, with
it, the ongoing nature of US-Iran games of strategy
wherein each side seeks to contain the other side. While
the ultimate drift or consequence of this "reciprocal
containment" strategy is far from certain, one thing is
for sure: the hidden hands of Iran in Iraq will continue
to sow positive and negative influence no matter what.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author
of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign
Policy (Westview Press) and "Iran's Foreign Policy
Since 9/11", Brown's Journal of World Affairs,
co-authored with former deputy foreign minister Abbas
Maleki, No 2, 2003.
Speaking Freely is an
Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click hereif you
are interested in contributing.
