War Sirens Herald Iran's Hour of Revenge
By Khairallah Khairallah (London) Financial Times March 24, 2003
Financial Times; March 24, 2003, Monday Usa Edition 1; Section: Comment & Analysis; Pg. 17; Headline: War Sirens Herald Iran's Hour Of Revenge; By Khairallah Khairallah
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It may be part of George W. Bush's axis of evil; some predict it will be next on the list for US pre-emptive action; but Iran is the only one of Iraq's neighbours that wholeheartedly supports regime change in Baghdad, even if via a US-led invasion.
Getting rid of Saddam Hussein and his government is one of the few objectives on which the various factions of the Tehran regime agree. Since becoming convinced that the Bush administration is indeed determined to effect forcible change in Iraq, Tehran has been egging on Washington, albeit
in private. Whenever the US has needed Tehran's help, the Iranians have been
more than happy to oblige.
Take last December's London conference of Iraqi opposition groups. That gathering would not have been possible had Iran not encouraged its Shia cats-paw, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), to
attend. Iran strong-armed Abdulaziz al-Hakim, the Sciri representative, to adopt positions similar to those espoused by Zalmay Khalilzad, the US government representative. In exchange for its efforts, Iran was rewarded with a political statement from the conference that - for the first time in modern Iraqi history - spoke of a "Shia majority" in Iraq. This meant the US
was no longer able to ignore the sectarian reality of Iraq. Iran, keen for change in Iraq, realised early on that this could be achieved only with US military involvement.
Iranian interference angered many liberal Shia who warned Washington that, by supporting Sciri, they would be committing the same mistake they made when they encouraged Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to back the Taliban not that many years ago. They warned the Americans that Sciri would cause even more damage to Iraq's relatively open, multicultural and multi-ethnic society than the Taliban managed to inflict on Afghanistan. America, they predicted,
would regret having backed Sciri, just as it now regrets helping the Taliban.
Liberal Iraqi Sunnis, meanwhile, protested that the Iranians had succeeded in hijacking the Iraqi opposition by entering into a secret alliance with the Kurds and the Americans. One of the main reasons Tehran wants the Hussein regime out of the way is because it has realised it is the biggest obstacle standing in the way of Iran's attempts to increase its influence in
the region; especially in Iraq proper, which cannot conceivably retain its old character after the US is done with it.
Any new regime in Iraq - whatever its character - will have to take the country's Shia majority into consideration. Should the US fail to reshape Iraq into a prototype for neighbouring countries, Iran (which would in this case become one of the biggest operators in Iraq) would then succeed in sowing more confusion and forcing Washington to involve itself even more in Iraq. As a result, the Americans would increasingly need Iran.
Even the hardline conservative faction in Iran believes there are benefits in the US war on Iraq. This faction calculates that by having the US army on
Iran's border, it would be able to justify its repressive domestic policies.
What better reason for maintaining a hardline stance than having the "Great Satan" on your doorstep?
Overthrowing the Ba'athist regime in Iraq has been an Iranian objective since the days of the Shah. Yet Iran's attempts to change the regime have failed despite its support for various Iraqi opposition movements, including
the Kurds, for more than 30 years, the 1980-1988 war between the two countries and more than 12 years of sanctions.
Tehran therefore came to the conclusion that the only way it could get rid of its old enemy would be through a third party - in this case, the US. Contrary to popular belief, the Iranians have learnt how to co-exist with the Americans, as the experience of Afghanistan has demonstrated.
Whether Iraq manages to remain whole, or civil war breaks out, Iran has been
preparing itself for some time to play a role in both the US-led war and in post-Hussein Iraq.
In fact, the only unanswered question is whether Iranian military intervention will be direct or indirect. Will the Badr brigade, Sciri's military arm, which includes large numbers of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, cross over into Iraq in military or civilian garb?
In either case, it seems that the hour of revenge is at hand for the Iranians. Tehran believes it is time to redraw the political map of the Middle East, giving the Shias a bigger role everywhere, from Afghanistan to the Gulf to south Lebanon.
The writer is a London-based Lebanese political analyst
(C) 2003 The Financial Times Limited Financial Times (London) Posted for educational use only