Iranian Influence in Iraq? Inconceivable!

[bigtree]

THE most revealing argument that the Bush administration made in their day against Iran was their reference to Iran's oil and the influence Iran gains by trading with regional actors like Russia, Pakistan and China. Then-U.S. Intelligence Director John Negroponte said in a Feb. 2006 Senate Intelligence committee hearing, that a combination of rising demand for energy and instability in oil-producing regions was increasing the geopolitical leverage of key producing states.

"Record oil revenues and diversification of its trading partners are further strengthening the Tehran government." Negroponte warned.

Did the Bush administration want war with Iran? They were certainly angling for one. The Bush regime saw a short term plus in their efforts to further isolate Iran and those who would dare to trade with them.

"I think everybody understands that with a growing Iranian missile threat," then- Secretary of State Rice said in Berlin, "-- which is quite pronounced -- that there needs to be ways to deal with that problem, and, that we're talking about long lead times to be able to have a defensive counter to offensive missile threats," she said.

Then-VP Dick Cheney in Sydney took it upon himself to complain about China's 'military buildup' and their shooting down of an old weather satellite that year. Cheney wasn't really concerned with any actual threat from China. He was just carrying water for his military industry benefactors, like Lockheed and Boeing who were shopping around Europe for governments willing to buy into their 'missile defense' protection scheme they mapped out with the military industry executives who'd infected the Bush regime even before his ascendance to office.

"Last month's anti-satellite test, China's continued fast-paced military buildup are less constructive and are not consistent with China's stated goal of a peaceful rise," he said. Cheney was well aware of efforts reported underway for years to sell missile defense systems in Central Europe which accelerated that year, including reports about a deal underway with Britain's Blair to take his country's defence dollars in return for the false security of hunkering his citizens underneath a U.S. missile 'umbrella', hiding from anticipated reprisals from Bush's continuing and increasing militarism.

However, the reasoning behind the Bush administration's planned deployment of those 'missile interceptors' to Europe had nothing at all to do with some Cold War threat from Russia or China, according to Secretary of State Condi Rice, who told reporters during a trip to Germany that February, "There is no way that 10 interceptors in Poland and radar sites in the Czech Republic are a threat to Russia or that they are somehow going to diminish Russia's deterrent of thousands of warheads." Even General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said last week in Jakarta that he wouldn't directly tie China's satellite shooting to any threat. "We should not assume anything about the Chinese anti-satellite test other than they now have the capacity to shoot down a satellite," he told reporters.

What was it then which compelled the U.S. State Dept. and the Pentagon to ramp up the peddling of these missile systems to these European countries, unsettling decades of peaceful cooperation with their communist neighbors? There was a familiar theme which accompanied the incessant fearmongering militarism by the Bush regime. Secretary Rice spelled it out after claiming Russia had nothing to fear from the new, planned expansion of U.S. military influence in their backyard.

"I think everybody understands that with a growing Iranian missile threat," Rice said in Berlin,"-- which is quite pronounced -- that there needs to be ways to deal with that problem, and, that we're talking about long lead times to be able to have a defensive counter to offensive missile threats," she said.

However, Iran had(has) no intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the U.S. continent. Iran's longest range missile is the Shahab-3, which has a target radius of 620 miles. The Pentagon has been claiming for almost a decade that Iran is developing up to three new generations of the Shahab to increase its range. There was absolutely no evidence that Iran even possesses missiles threatening the U.S or had threatened the U.S. with missiles, yet, this entire escalation of concern supposedly prompted the Bush regime to step up the hawking of these dubious systems throughout Europe is predicated on their claims of an Iranian threat.

It was not enough for the U.S. to illegally invade and occupy a sovereign nation in the face of Russian and Chinese objections, the Bush regime was also intent on pressing their aggression and military posturing against Russia and China's economic ally, Iran, to the point of destabilizing the balance of weaponry in Europe which had allowed the decades-old deescalation of tensions and relative peace to prevail. And, they wanted us to believe that the target of their own destabilizing aggression was the most pernicious threat to world peace and security.

It was, in fact, the invasion and occupation of Iraq which emboldened Bush to promote the agenda of his PNAC cronies (who had petitioned for years for the invasion and occupation of the spokes of their 'evil axis') to posture against Iran as a mortal enemy. Yet, it was also the consequence of that invasion and occupation that Iran was advantaged to expand their influence and presence in their former nemesis', U.S. sponsored regime in Iraq.

"If we were to leave before the job is done, if we were to fail in Iraq, Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons," Bush explained in 2007.

That's the argument of republicans responding to President Obama's announcement of the stepped-up withdrawal from Iraq of all but a handful of U.S. troops. Most of the criticisms from republicans in and out of Congress centers, not on the success or failure of the Maliki regime, but on the curious notion that Iran is 'emboldened' by the move and will somehow force themselves on the U.S. advantaged Iraqi government.

Rep. Michele Bachmann: “President Obama’s decision represents the end of the era of America’s influence in Iraq and the strengthening of Iran’s influence in Iraq with no plan to counter that influence.

Gov. Rick Perry: “I have deep concerns about the conditions left behind. My longtime concern about Iran’s growing influence in Iraq is coming to fruition, and that ultimately hurts America and our allies. Iran’s influence and the potential creation of an Iranian puppet state in Iraq will have disastrous consequences in the Middle East and around the globe.”

Frederick Kagan, big promoter of the 2007 US troop "surge": "The withdrawal of American military protection from a state helpless to defend itself on its own effectively throws Iraq into the arms of Iran, however the Iraqis feel about the matter."

Jennifer Rubin, big Iraq war promoter on twitter yesterday: "WHO KNEW Iran would be emboldened and allies freaked on US withdrawal from Iraq? Oh, everyone on the right..."

Bush's most dangerous mischief (outside of the invasion and occupation) was, by far, his strident attempt to shift blame for the violent resistance to his consolidation of power in Iraq, to the sovereign nation of Iran. Amazingly, Bush cited Iranian support for Shia "death squads" as a rationale for his accusations without any mention at all of his own role in the arming and training of these rogue elements - many of which began as militias under control of the new regime.

Bush made the accusation and rationalization that an al-Qaeda attack on the mosque in Samarra in early 2006 was the reason the Shia militias became independent execution squads, dispensing their barbaric brand of justice wherever and whenever they engage their Sunni rivals. "Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq's elections posed for their cause," Bush claimed, "and they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam - the Golden Mosque of Samarra - in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked." he said in a primetime address.

"Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads," Bush said. As Bush proposed an escalation of America's involvement in the middle of Iraq's civil war - including sending 4,000 of the 21,000 additional troops to the al-Anbar province to battle what he called "extremists" in the Sunni communities there - it should be remembered that it was our own forces who inflicted the first damage on a holy site in a siege in Najaf in 2004 when they were trying to dislodge al-Sadr and his Mahdi army who had taken refuge around the Imam Ali shrine. It should also be remembered that it was Sadr and his followers who joined with Shiite leader Sistani and enabled the new regime, headed by Shiite and Sadr ally, Maliki, to assume power.

In Iraq, under the pretext of fighting al-Qaeda, Bush intended for our troops to re-enter strongholds like Najaf and Samarra, and they inevitably confronted the anti-American Shia forces who reside there. Bush challenged Maliki to act against his Shiite allies and provide him with Iraqi troops to help with his escalation, or take the blame for whatever chaos and unrest the bolstered U.S. force stirred up with their muckraking.

After sacrificing the strained resources and humanity of our nation's defenses for almost four years to install and establish, to fight and defend a Shiite-dominated regime who had openly curried the favor of the very Iranian government Bush was now demonizing, Bush wanted that same Iran-friendly regime to provide forces to attack and suppress the heart and soul of their very existence in Iraq and in the region. It was the Maliki regime who, earlier in 2007, made a very public trip to Iran to meet and bond with Bush's Iranian nemesis.



It was the Maliki regime that our soldiers were killed and maimed defending, who defied the declared interest of the U.S. and forged a security agreement with the objectionable Iranian regime.

It's more than remarkable for conservatives and republicans to now complain about Iranian influence among the Shias in Iraq after their party's president (with their full and vocal support) removed the only existing wedge in the region against Iranian influence when Saddam's puppet dictatorship was taken down by his fickle U.S. benefactors. It was all the more amazing to hear Bush accuse Iran of sponsoring Shiite death squads when it was our own military who initially armed and trained them as recruits for Iraq's army and police forces, and who tolerated them for months and months -before, during, and after the staged elections - as they terrorized their Sunni rivals and those factions opposed to the new Shiite-dominated regime.

Iran is not occupying Iraq; The U.S. is. Iran has not armed and trained the very individuals who made up the bulk of the Shia death squads; the U.S. has. Iran is not threatening anyone outside of their own borders; it was Bush who, in fact, threatened Iran with our military forces amassed next door (now in a virtual ring around the country and region).

THE Obama administration's new Intelligence Director, Dennis Blair, identified the declining world economy as his “primary near-term security concern” in his first national threat assessment before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Warning of a worldwide economic crisis which could produce unstable governments which would, in turn, threaten the U.S. security, Blair asserted that our nation's economic downturn has led to “increased questioning of U.S. stewardship of the global economy.”

“The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests,” he said.

The economy and 'U.S. strategic interests' were also on Blair's mind as he warned about a threat he perceived from Venezuela and the oil-rich country's growing economic ties with Iran. Blair warned that "Venezuela is serving as a bridge to help Iran build relations with other Latin American countries . . . although the two countries are still struggling to overcome bureaucratic and linguistic obstacles to implementing accords," he said.

From those economic ties, Blair extrapolated that none other than Hezbollah had advantaged themselves of relationships in Latin America which he attributed to 'corruption'. "Chavez's growing ties to Iran, coupled with Venezuela's lax financial laws and border controls, and widespread corruption have created a permissive environment for Hezbollah to exploit," he said.

Blair complained, too, that China had also ingratiated themselves in the Latin American economy by arming Venezuela. This focus on economic concerns from the Intelligence Director might seem as unprecedented as they were strikingly removed from the usual analysis of weapon proliferation, terrorist activity, and worldwide reaction to our multi-deployments abroad which would seem more pressing to his department than issues normally assigned to Commerce or State. Yet, Blair was practically mimicking his Bush-era predecessor in the intelligence position, John Negroponte.

Am I the only one who thinks it's out of line for the Director of National Intelligence (or any of our Defense departments) to be musing about and formulating policy around oil exports and trade? Not so unusual, I suppose, if you already consider that all of the U.S. military adventures into the Middle East are driven by an obsession for oil, as well as for power.

The Bush regime saw the prospect of Russia’s shifting alliances as threats to the U.S. 'national security'. The administration would have liked nothing more than for Russia and China to be regarded as pariahs in the world community. Bush and Cheney (and Rice) would have been more than satisfied to isolate Russia, and China with a manufactured pall of suspicion and fear, making oil-producing nations reluctant to do business with them out of fear of U.S. retaliation and making existing deals with Iran appear sinister and threatening.

Now it appears that the Obama WH is content to allow the prospect of the realization of Bush's destabilizing, cynical deployment of these dubious 'missile interceptors' overshadowing their promised diplomacy with Iran. It's a departure from the posture President Obama assumed while campaigning. Candidate Obama had responded to Iran's reported missile tests with a call for direct diplomacy and economic sanctions, if necessary.

In contrast, his republican opponent, John McCain, had called for an acceleration of Bush's efforts to persuade Eastern European countries to sign on to the administration's paranoid missile defense ploy. Obama said at the time that he would listen to his national security team to decide whether Iran's reported tests "indicated any new capabilities on Iran's part." Likewise, early in the transition, Pres. elect Obama's courtesy call to Polish President Lech Kaczynski resulted in reports from Kaczynski's office that Obama had assured him that "the missile defense project would continue."

The Obama transition team quickly put out a statement denying such a promise was made to the Polish president: "President-elect Obama made no commitment on it. His position is as it was throughout the campaign -- that he supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable."

The last part about waiting for a 'workable' missile defense system was the hook I had relied on to convince myself that Obama had no intention of committing the U.S. to such a destabilizing boondoggle. It appears that the rhetoric about missile defense from Mr. Obama throughout the campaign - always couched in the 'workability' argument - was designed to give voters the impression that the new administration would walk away from Bush's obviously mischievous provocation. I bought it, anyway.

Now, with a hedge about accepting a missile defense system that "works and is cost-effective," all that stands in the way of moving forward with Bush's destabilizing ploy is some assurance given by the holdover cronies in the Pentagon that the bugs have been worked out and the system is good to go. Whether the god-awful things actually work is certainly important, but the Obama administration's most vital concern should be whether these destabilizing systems are being deployed in response to an actual threat, and, if that perceived threat can, instead, be lessened or eliminated by the careful diplomacy promised in the campaign.

Even as then-president Bush worked to undermine the new neighborly relationship between Iraq and Iran, which produced economic agreements as well as pledges to ensure each other's security, the August 8th image of Maliki and the Iranian president emerging from their meeting holding hands was an undeniable refutation of whatever threat republicans claim Iran poses to Iraqis.

There was even less solace for then-President Bush in the normalization of economic ties between the two former enemies as Iran and Iraq inked a deal on an oil pipeline which would carry oil from Iraqi oil fields to refineries in Iran. Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad outlined an ambitious plan to expand its economic and military ties with Iraq — including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital — even as the Bush administration had been warning the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs.

If we took Bush at his word (and his present conservative minions). . . that, he was really concerned with Iran's influence in Iraq then he really blew it. There is nothing more responsible for, and enabling of, Iranian influence in Iraq than his destabilizing invasion and occupation. There was nothing more empowering of 'extremists' in Iran that both administrations worry out loud about than the reflexive response of the residents of the Middle East to Bush's threatening military expansionism.

Nothing has encouraged support in the region for extremists bent on harming Americas and our interests more than Bush's strident, imperious coup in Iraq. Whatever political atmosphere now exists in Iran was first sparked by all of Bush's saber-rattling and threats against the primary spoke of his 'axis of evil'. If Bush and his conservative acolytes wanted a moderate Iran, they clearly didn't take the influence of their own pernicious militarism into account.

Apparently aware of the contradictions and duplicity in the American position toward Iran, Obama's Secretary of State Clinton warned Iranians this week against exploiting the President's withdrawal. That warning, however is as hollow and transparent as our nation's entire policy toward the sovereign country. The administration knows well that Iran has no need for any sort of military coup, or for any type of destabilizing takeover of the Iraqi government to be able to assume ultimate and decisive influence in in the war-torn nation.

More importantly, Iraq knows, appreciatively, that if they need either military or economic assistance from their obliging next-door neighbor Iran, all they have to do is whistle.


http://www.opednews.com/articles/Iranian-Influence-In-Iraq-by-Ron-Fullwood-111025-654.html

[bigtree]

1. kick

[Old and In the Way]

2. So what did we get for Bush's "Mission Accomplished" photo-op??

One, already defanged despot who provided a secular buffer between the Sunni's and Shias.

What did it cost?

- Over $1 trillion dollars
- 6000 American lives
- 10's of thousands of disabled soldiers
- 100's of thousands of dead, maimed, and dsisplaced innocent Iraqi's
- our international reputation
- no change in our strategic and economic dependence on ME oil
- a broken nation state that had provided a counter-balance to religious nation-states in the region

Heckofajob, Bushie! You, Dick, and Connie ought to be at the Haque explaining to the ICC why you shouldn't be tried as war criminals.

[bigtree]

3. a disturbing shot of his oversized codpiece

. . . and what you wrote, OAITW.

[grantcart]

4. Iraqis are not susceptible to the current Iranian administration's influences.

Where to start?;

Even though they are both Shia they are radically different ethnically and language. To understand how these differences grate on people imagine a fundamentalist Southern Baptist dictating policy to an Episcopalian.

The only real overlap is that the Shia in Iraq do recruit top religious scholars from Iran. But the odd thing about it is that there is very little flow back and forth. Once a scholar has migrated to Iraq it is a permanent move and will not be accepted back in Iran. These clerics become naturalized Iraqi citizens and down play their Persian roots.

Iran feels a superiority towards Iraqi Shia because of their long regal Persian history and the fact that they are the worlds largest Shia state. Iraqis feel superior to Persian Shia because they are not so provincial, are able to interact more effectively with Sunni, and they have maintained the most important shrines (the same way that Saudia Arabia maintains a superior feeling because they host Mecca).

Moreover Shia don't support strong man dictators, but rather a collectivist peer review process (and this is where the modern scientific method evolved from). Influence is not made in smoke filled rooms but in influencing the debate among the collectivist leadership. Ahmadinejad is not a strong ruler but more of a central clerk.

Finally there is a natural tendency for neighbors who resemble each other to intensify differences that appear minor or invisible to outsiders and seek allies outside of the region. Vietnam/China, Palestine,Israel, Ireland, are examples.

Saddam Hussein had little difficulty in playing on these feelings and drafting hundreds of thousands of Shia to fight enthusiastically in the worst modern war in the ME i.e. Iraq vs Iran showing just how much antagonism really exists.


And then there is this; Iran is having a hard time influencing itself let alone its neighbors. The Iranian regime is supported only by a small minority of its citizens and is in more of its citizens being persuaded by the 'Arab Spring' than able to project influence to its neighbors.

Iran will have some influence. But if it tries to have too great an impact will find a more significant blow back.

The issue of Iran creating a 'sphere of influence' is just another example of the right drumming up fear scenarios to try and hold power.

The current regime in Iran is having a hard time influencing public opinion in Tehran let alone people outside of their border.

[Vattel]

5. Interesting.

[bigtree]

6. all true, my friend

I would, however, allow for the Maliki regime's dependence on the Iranians (at some level) in keeping many of the threatening forces at bay to enable the regime to maintain its level of power.

Of course, the U.S. also provided a buffer. If we were talking about some religious order in power, I'd be inclined to refer to the traditional relationships in the region to determine the order of influence, but this is a necessarily craven Iraqi regime which will be as ruthless with any alliance, as it is acquiescing of the Iranians and their role in propping up the present power structure -- especially after we exit.

[grantcart]

7. I think 'craven' gives it too much of a sense of order.

Having lived in countries where these coalitions are pasted together I think that the regime's attention is completed soaked up in one central question - how to survive till next Friday.

I do have to give their oil ministry high marks in its public and transparent oil bidding process, perhaps the only one with out bribes in the world. But again they were independent of the central government.

From a regional security point of view both Iran and Iraq would be strongly motivated to undermine any militant Jihadist movements and for that reason agree with your basic premise that concerns about Iran having an undue influence on Iraq.

The same thing happened with the US.

In the middle of the 18th century the US was consumed with security concerns with France and was allied with GB. Once France exited the stage then our differences with our 'cousins' became more pronounced and we became allies with French to defeat the British. In the same way, once that we are more distant we will be seen as less threatening and will have greater not less influence in Iraq. Iran on the other hand will be seen as a more certain existential threat and the differences will be put under the microscope.