http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#109034417600472498
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Iran in Bush's Sights
The same techniques used to get up the Iraq war are now being applied
by the political Right in the United States, including President Bush,
to Iran. These include innuendo, guilt by association, vague fears,
and hyped capabilities. If Bush gets a second term, it seems very
likely that his administration will make war on Iran.
The current round of sabre rattling by Washington against Tehran began
with some passages in the report of the 9/11 commission, leaked to
Time magazine,
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,664967,00.html
that revealed that 8 to 10 of the largely Saudi
"muscle" or "newskin" hijackers sent by Bin Laden (to help control the
flight attendants and passengers for the al-Qaeda pilots) had passed
through Iran on their way to the United States over a period of
several months. This passage would be unremarkable in and of itself.
The 9/11 commission maintains, however, according to Time magazine,
that Iranian officials had issued specific instructions to facilitate
the passage of al-Qaeda members across Iranian borders, beginning in
October, 2000.
The commission also alleges that Iranian officials came to al-Qaeda
after the bombing of the USS Cole and suggested they team up to attack
the US, but that Bin Laden turned down the offer for fear of
alienating his Wahhabi supporters in Saudi Arabia by associating
himself with Shiite Iran.
One problem with all these allegations is that they are sourced only
to al-Qaeda detainees, Iranian defectors, and NSA electronic
intercepts. It is the same as with Iraq in 2002. For all we know,
there is an Iranian Chalabi who is behind these reports, hoping to get
the US to overthrow the regime in Iran so that he can take over. As
for the al-Qaeda detainees or those under electronic surveillance, the
letter of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has already made it clear that some
radical Sunni elements that fought in Afghanistan dream of provoking a
Shiite-American struggle. Al-Qaeda detainees are notorious for
providing the US with disinformation aimed at furthering their plots.
Iran is a notorious enemy of Wahhabism and al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
How sweet it would be to provoke a war between the US and Iran by
hanging 9/11 on Tehran! (It should be remembered that NSA intercepts
also showed that Saddam had biological and chemical weapons,
presumably because Saddam ordered his officers to talk them up in the
vain hope of deterring a US attack).
Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin has already admitted that a) the
US has known for a long time that al-Qaeda operatives travelled
through Iran, and b) that there is no evidence
that Iran knew beforehand about the 9/11 plot.
Iranian officials have acknowledged that the al-Qaeda men passed
through its territory, but point out that Iran's borders are long and
porous, and insisted that the al-Qaeda operatives came through
"illegally." Iran's intelligence minister, Ali Yunesi, said on
Saturday that "The Intelligence Ministry has identified and dismantled
all the Iranian branches of the Al Qaeda movement . . . We have
stopped the terrorist acts of Al Qaeda. If we had not done so, we
would have had security problems."
Another problem is that Iran does not have a tight, unified
government. The Iranian state consists of a number of competing power
centers. In recent years the president, Mohammad Khatami, has
supported more civil liberties and an opening to the West. The Supreme
Jurisprudent, Ali Khamenei, is an old-style Khomeinist who revels in
puritanical theocracy and hates the US. Even Khamenei, however, is not
implicated in ever having planned direct action against US soil. Then
there are the Basij and Revolutionary Guards and Quds Brigade
paramilitaries, and it is unclear how much central control the state
has over them. So even if some official in the Revolutionary Guards
did let al-Qaeda operatives in (and this is by no means proven), it
would not necessarily say much about the stance of the Iranian
government(s).
Some close US allies assert that Iran's role in fighting terrorism has
been positive. Iraq's current ambassador to the United States, Rend
Rahim Franke, said recently that Iran had prevented some 200 fighters
from transiting its territory from Afghanistan to flood into Iraq and
carry out terrorist attacks in her country, according to the Boston
Globe:
' Iran so far has had a positive role in Iraq, and the Iraqi
government recently asked it to cooperate even more on security,
including sharing more intelligence, Rend al-Rahim Francke, chief
of Iraq's diplomatic mission in Washington, said in an interview
with the Associated Press. Rahim said she believes these overtures
prompted Iran recently to capture 200 Afghan fighters who were
trying to enter Iraq from Iran. She offered few details about the
detentions, which had not been previously known. Last week, Iraq's
human rights minister said only one Afghan was in custody -- one of
99 foreign fighters held in the country . . . Rahim rejected any
suggestion that Iran supports terrorism in Iraq. ''It is not in
Iran's interest for Iraq to be in turmoil," she said. ''If Iraq
turns into a haven for terrorists, not only Iraq but all countries
in the region will be affected." . . . '
The rightwing media in the US used to hang on Franke's every word when
she was promoting a war against Iraq, but now that she is serving as
witness for Iran's good behavior, they are completely ignoring her
important testimony. (Franke seemed to be contradicted Tuesday by the
Sunni ex-Baathists in the caretaker government, who worry about Iran
supporting militant Shiite militias).
Iran has admitted to having taken some al-Qaeda operatives captive
after September 11, but it is holding them for some quid pro quos from
the United States. In particular, Iran wants to ensure that the US
does not allow the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) terrorist organization to
continue to hit Iran from its bases in Iraq, and the al-Qaeda
detainees are among its only bits of leverage over Washington in this
regard. (Amazingly enough, there are political forces in Washington,
including the Neocon-dominated, pro-Israeli "Washington Institute for
Near East Policy," that support the MEK terrorist organization and
want the Bush administration to, as well. Even scarier, WINEP, this
supporter of a notorious terrorist group, is highly influential in
Washington and US military and State Department personnel are actually
detailed there to learn about the Middle East!).
<snip>
As always in Middle East politics, we should begin with the Common
Sense test and then go on to the "In who's Interest is this Odd
Allegation?" test.
Here is the Common Sense test: Usama Bin Laden is a fanatical Sunni
Muslim surrounded by other fanatical Sunni Muslims and was nested in
the Taliban, who are fanatical Sunni Muslims. Iran is Shiite, a branch
of Islam that fanatical Sunni Muslims absolutely hate. In Afghan
politics, 1996-2002, at the time it was dominated by the Taliban and
al-Qaeda, Iran was allied with the Northern Alliance against the
Taliban and al-Qaeda. Iran was trying to overthrow the Taliban and
crush them and al-Qaeda.
Iran's allies in Afghanistan were the Tajiks, the Uzbeks and
especially the Hazaras. The Hazaras are Afghan Shiites. They form
about 15% of the Afghan population. The Hazaras' main political
vehicle was the Hizb-i Vahdat or Unity Party, which was and is closely
allied with Iran. Tajik warlords in the Northern Alliance like Ismail
Khan, who are Sunnis, also have strong ties of language and patronage
to Iran. Basically, Persian speakers in Afghanistan tended to side
with Iran, especially Shiite Persian speakers. Whereas Pushtu speakers
and immigrant Arabs tended to side instead with Pakistan.
When the Taliban took Mazar-i Sharif, they massacred Iranian
intelligence ("diplomatic") personnel in that city. Iran mobilized for
war against the Taliban at that point, and a war was narrowly averted.
Pakistan's Sunni fundamentalist-dominated military, especially its
Inter-Services Intelligence or military intelligence, had more or less
created the Taliban and heavily supported them with equipment,
training, fuel and other goods.
Iran and Pakistan were engaged in a regional struggle for influence in
Afghanistan and Central Asia, in which Iran's Shiism and Pakistan's
Sunnism were ideological tools. This struggle spilled over into
Pakistan itself. The radical Sunni Sipah-i Sahabah or Companions of
the Prophet, originating in Jhang Siyal in northern Punjab, has
conducted a terrorist campaign of assassination against Shiites in
Pakistan. Sipah-i Sahabah was one of the jihadi groups that got
training in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and was allied with al-Qaeda
and the Taliban. Several other radical Pakistani jihadi groups were in
the same position. They killed hundreds of Shiites in Pakistan,
especially Karachi and the Punjab. At one point Iranian attaches at
the Karachi embassy were assassinated, probably by these same groups.
So in 1996-2002 there was a behind the scenes war between Shiite Iran
and Sunni jihadis, with Afghanistan and Pakistan being the main
battlefields. At one point in the late 1990s, it almost became a real,
hot war.
So then you come to me and say that in 2000 and 2001, Iran was
actively helping al-Qaeda and was trying to ally with it. And I say,
that sounds to me like complete gibberish and I would only accept it
if you show me excellent documentary proof.
It would be like saying that you had evidence that Roosevelt let
German Nazi agents cross the United States to carry out an operation
against Mao's forces in China during World War II. Well, on the face
of it, the fascists would not have wanted the Communists to get China,
so such a covert operation wouldn't be out of the question. And the US
would certainly have in principle welcomed anything that would have
helped the Nationalists. So you could argue yourself into thinking
that the proposition isn't completely crazy. But if you just step
back, you can see that geo-political speculation doesn't carry much
weight in such a situation, and the whole idea is obviously crazy.
That is how I feel about the idea that Khamenei cozied up to Bin
Laden.
The second test is Who is Helped by these Crazy Allegations?
- The Likud lobby in Washington, especially Michael Ledeen, Michael
Rubin and other warmongers. They want the Tehran regime overthrown in
part because it stands in the way of an Israeli annexation of southern
Lebanon, with the Litani river as the long-sought prize. Iran is
allied with Hizbullah in southern Lebanon, which forced the Israelis
back out of Lebanon with a nearly 20-year long guerrilla struggle.
They also want to force Hizbullah to pull back its support of the
Palestinian uprising. Since Iran has substantially cut back on its
support for Hizbullah, however, overthrowing Tehran would have little
effect on such local political dynamics. (The Likud's Ariel Sharon
should never have invaded Lebanon in 1982, which is what created
Hizbullah, suicide bombings as a tactic, and radicalized Lebanese like
9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah).
- Old-time US intelligence and diplomatic officials who have a grudge
with Iran over the Hostage Crisis and other Iranian actions against
the US in the 1980s
- The US military-industrial complex, which is frustrated at not being
able to extract money from the potentially wealthy Iranian market
- Iranian expatriates from families formerly allied with the deposed
Shah of Iran, who are enormously wealthy and influential and are eager
to play Chalabi in Tehran. Watch them as key sources of
disinformation.
- Al-Qaeda, which is seeking to "sharpen contradictions" by provoking
serial fights between the US and Muslim powers. It would especially
like to see a US- Shiite struggle, so that its two major enemies would
both be weakened and pre-occupied with each other rather than Bin
Laden.
These five forces are, obviously, disparate and in other regards at
odds with one another. But all would like to see a US war against
Iran. We will see a process whereby any lie issuing from any of them
is amplified by the others, creating a multiplier effect. In
particular, AIPAC and the military-industrial complex have enormous
weight with Congress and the White House, and can push for the war
domestically even as the other forces feed US intelligence
disinformation abroad.
Iran is 3 times more populous than Iraq, however, and its population
is highly mobilized and nationalistic. A US invasion force there will
be greeted in a way that will make Iraq seem tame. Moreover, the
fallout from Shiites in Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq itself (who will
almost universally side with Iran against the US in any war) will put
US troops and citizens in enormous danger. And that, my friends, is a
scenario we are very probably looking at if Bush gets back in.
posted by Juan @ 7/21/2004 07:05:08 AM