Wednesday, Apr 12, 2006
Opinion - News Analysis
An Iran-U.S. dialogue and Arab anxieties http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/12/stories/2006041206061100.htm
Atul Aneja
Apprehensions about the capacity of Iran - as a wealthier and more influential regional power - to stir up trouble in West Asia through a growing trans-national Shia network are growing.
THE UPCOMING dialogue between Iran and the United States on Iraq is fuelling anxiety in the Arab world.
On April 8, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in an interview to the Dubai-based Al Arabiya satellite TV channel said that Iraq was on the brink of a civil war. He alleged that Shias living in Arab states bordering Iraq were more loyal to Iran than to their own countries.
Mr. Mubarak's comments, revealing his apprehensions about Iran's capacity to stir trouble in West Asia through a growing trans-national Shia network, came after intelligence chiefs from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey had met in Cairo. That meeting was part of an ongoing dialogue, which has focussed on two key questions. First, what will be the fallout on the region of a possible civil war in Iraq? Secondly, how can the growing Iranian influence in Iraq be contained?
The Shia connection
Iran exercises considerable influence in Iraq by means of a large number of Shia institutions, which have occupied the political centre stage after the December 15 parliamentary elections. It is a well-recorded fact that the Iranian revolutionary guards have trained and armed the Badr Corp, the military wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The SCIRI is one of the key constituent bodies of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), which won the maximum number of seats in the parliamentary elections. Its leader Abdel Aziz Al Hakim, who spent two decades in exile in Iran, is one of Iraq's most influential political figures today. The Iranians are also close to the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, the President of Iraq. Iranian officials have stressed that Mr. Al Hakim and Mr. Talabani had requested Teheran to open a dialogue with the U.S. on Iraq. In an interview with the state-run daily Iran, Iranian Charge d'Affaires in Iraq Hasan Kazemi Qomi said that through these talks Teheran hoped to improve the security situation and advance political stability in Iraq. The process of government-formation in Iraq had stalled after the UIA elected Ibrahim Jaafari the Prime Minister. The Americans, under the stewardship of their Ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, opposed Mr. Jaafari's candidature, saying his leadership would impede the formation of a stable national unity government. Backed by the Americans, the Sunnis and the Kurdish communities of Iraq strongly objected to Mr. Jaafari's candidature. However, efforts to dislodge Mr. Jaafari, which were capped by a combined visit to Baghdad on April 3 by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, did not yield immediate results.
Mr. Qomi, who will lead the talks with Mr. Khalilzad, compared the upcoming dialogue to an earlier situation in Afghanistan, wherein Teheran and Washington had engaged in talks in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. He recalled that both sides were part of the "six-plus-two" group on Afghanistan, which also included key Central Asian republics, Pakistan, China and Russia.
The two had also worked together at the Bonn conference on Afghanistan's reconstruction, as well as for the emergence of a democratically elected government in Kabul. Both Mr. Qomi and Mr. Khalilzad have known each other well as they had participated in the Afghan talks.
Despite the possibility that the nuclear crisis revolving around the Iranian atomic programme could obstruct the dialogue on Iraq, Iraq's Arab neighbours have been wary about these talks. They fear that success in the Iran-U.S. dialogue would alter the status quo in West Asia in a fundamental sense. Iran's influence in Iraq, they apprehend, would deepen and acquire legitimacy. The recognition of its role in Iraq, in turn, would have serious long-term implications.
For instance, Iran would be well placed to manoeuvre Iraq's oil politics once its political linkages with the Iraqi establishment were formalised. Already the fourth largest oil producer in the world, Iran's capacity to influence Iraqi oil supplies in future would challenge the existing international petroleum order led by Saudi Arabia. Iran, in other words, could emerge wealthier and, consequently, a more influential regional power. Besides, there has been an undercurrent of Sunni-Shia tensions in the region, which had got accentuated since Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979.
Since both countries have majority Shia populations, a closer bonding between Iran and Iraq would raise the Shia profile in the entire region, where the Sunnis have been politically influential so far. Iran already has established close ties with Shias, who are in a majority in Lebanon. A large number of Shias live in Saudi Arabia's sensitive, oil-bearing Al Hawsa province. Iran's influence is significant in Bahrain, where the majority Shia community is ruled by a Sunni monarchy.
Copyright © 2006, The Hindu.