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2 Crisis of opportunity for Iran and
the US By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has
stated his determination to turn "the present
threats into opportunities" for Iran and, by all
indications, the brewing crisis between Turkey and
Iraq represents precisely such a scenario, in
light of Iran's excellent relations with all the
parties involved and its ability to play an
effective crisis-prevention role.
On the
eve of the much-anticipated high-level summit on
Iraq and its neighbors in Istanbul, Iran's Foreign
Minister Manouchehr
Mottaki, who was due in Ankara
on Friday, coinciding with the visit of US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveled to
Syria and Iraq. And while on a stopover in
Baghdad, he was urged by the Iraqi leadership to
mediate the "border crisis" with Turkey.
The Istanbul summit, which includes the
foreign ministers of Iraq and its neighbors, plus
the five permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council and the Group of Eight, is due to
start on Friday night and continue into Saturday.
A litmus test of Iranian diplomacy,
Mottaki's ability to deliver the goods on this
front will undoubtedly help Iran's own crisis with
the US and Israel on the nuclear issue. The big
question is, of course, whether or not the US,
which has reportedly sent signals to Tehran
regarding a fourth round of bilateral Iran-US
dialogue on Iraq's security [1], will tolerate
Iran's mediation in the Kurdish crisis. More
importantly, can anyone prevent the outbreak of
the present Kurdish crisis from developing into a
full-blown crisis, given the admission by various
top Turkish government officials and experts that
Turkey's invasion of northern Iraq, to deal with
the menace of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party),
is irreversible.
Indeed, so much rides on
the flurry of diplomatic transactions, ie, the
Istanbul meeting bound to be dominated by the
growing tensions between Turkey and Iraq and the
November 5 White House visit by Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan has stated,
"I will only tell him [President George W Bush]
that we expect concrete, immediate steps against
the terrorists," and the PKK itself, one of whose
leaders, Abdulrahman Alchaderchi, has asked Ankara
to come up with a "peace proposal".
According to Alchaderchi, the Turkish
military has recently conducted 24 military
operations inside Iraq and Turkey is known to have
massed more than 100,000 troops and several
mechanized divisions consisting of tanks and
armored vehicles at the border with Iraq.
Depending on the outcome of the Istanbul meeting
and the US visit of Erdogan, by mid-November we
may be witnessing a whole new chapter in Iraq.
This could destabilize not only Iraq but also the
larger region, given Iran's opposition to any
violation of Iraq's territorial integrity and the
likely negative impact on hitherto amicable
Iran-Turkish relations.
Consequently, a
number of security experts in the region have
concluded that the US is playing "both sides of
the fence" and that it is not in the US interest
to cap the Kurdish crisis, especially through any
Iranian effort that would enhance Iran's regional
influence and may come at the US's cost.
The meager steps on the part of the US,
which from the Turkish point of view has ignored
the evolving problem for several years, may be a
remedy too late and a Turkish invasion and
(indefinite occupation of) parts of northern Iraq
may be a fait accompli.
Again, much
depends on the US's approach, presently wanting in
logic, except in the context of US-Iran
competition in Iraq. This is reflected in a
statement by US State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack, not only rebuffing Baghdad's bid to get
the US military directly involved in patrolling
the troubled borders with Turkey, but also adding
salt to the wound by hurling the responsibility on
the weak shoulders of Iraqi government.
He
stated, "We are looking to the Iraqi government to
act, to act to prevent terrorist attacks, and
ultimately to dismantle that terror group that is
operating on their territory." Clearly, the
Kurdish crisis is also a crisis of opportunity not
only for Iran, but also for the US, which can fish
in the muddied waters, with calculated risk no
doubt, since this crisis could easily get out of
hand and facilitate Iraq's disintegration, much to
the chagrin of Iran and its allies controlling the
central government in Baghdad today.
Thus
while there are opportunities, the inherent danger
remains that of a full-scale regional
conflagration that will further complicate the US
mission in Iraq. And the very mix of incentives
and disincentives connected to the
multi-dimensional aspects and side-effects of the
Kurdish crisis may result in politics of ambiguity
in Washington and Tehran that, in the end, fuel
this crisis.
Kurdish crisis and Iran's
nuclear crisis The timing of the Kurdish
crisis with the escalating Iran crisis over its
nuclear program is a complicating factor. But
Tehran is pleased with the widening gap between
Ankara, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) conduit for the Middle East, and Washington
as it represents a national security plus for
Iran. Indeed, so much can be garnered from a
two-day international conference on NATO held in
Tehran this week. Its concluding statement
reiterated Iran's opposition to any NATO expansion
in the region as "foreign to the region's
environment".
However, as former Iranian
president Hashemi Rafsanjani has warned, the
"regional environment is polluted" and the Iranian
government must act prudently to neutralize the
threats against it. A number of Iranian pundits,
such as Mohsen Aminzadeh, affiliated with the
pro-reform moderates, has written an article on
Iran's foreign policy and threats to national
(security) interests, accusing the Ahmadinejad
government of "adventurist" and "provocative"
actions benefiting Iran's enemies. But,
Aminzadeh
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