A New Tone from Tehran?
Dr. iRack has been traveling, so he's just now catching up with some reading. This story from the Christian Science Monitor a few days ago stands out as particularly intriguing. It provides new details on Iran's interventions to broker ceasefires in Basra and Sadr City. The most interesting part of the story is a previously unreported secret April 4 meeting between Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Quds Force Commander Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
In that meeting, General Soleimani "was deeply concerned" and "promised to stop arming groups in Iraq and to ensure that groups halt activities against US forces," according to a description given by a US official to the Monitor.Soleimani gave Mr. Talabani a "message" for US Gen. David Petraeus, too. He noted that his portfolio includes Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon and that he was willing to "send a small team" to "discuss any issue" with the Americans.
Talabani and other senior Iraqi leaders told US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General Petraeus that this "was an entirely different tone than we had ever heard from [Soleimani] before," and asked the Americans to "please take it seriously" and "test it," according to the official.
[. . .]
[T]he conciliatory tone of Soleimani's meeting with Talabani surprised Iraqi and US officials alike.
"We all must work together – Iraq, Iran, and the United States – to stabilize the situation," the Iraqi president said Soleimani told him. He declared Iran's unequivocal support for the Maliki government, for its efforts to dismantle all militias, and Iran's support for the unity of Iraq.
Sadr was now the biggest threat to peace in Iraq, Soleimani said, echoing past Pentagon assessments. "We now recognize [that] Sadrists have gotten outside anyone's control" which is a "dangerous development for Iraq, for Iran and for all Shia," he indicated, according to the description. Iran could not control Sadr even in Iran, where the cleric is currently taking advanced religious training, and his return to Iraq would "be a big danger."
Iran's "only demand," Soleimani is said to have told Talabani, was that the anti-Iranian group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK or MKO), some 3,400 of whose militants still reside under US guard at Camp Ashraf, be forced to leave Iraq. US and Iraqi officials, too, have long been looking for ways to disband the camp.
Soleimani also, according to the official, said that Iran would "not stand in the way of [Iraqi] efforts to negotiate an agreement with the US," which he termed a "good thing for Iraq," referring to a deal on the long-term status of American troops in Iraq.
The reaction from U.S. officials was understandably skeptical:
The top two US officials in Iraq [Petraeus and Crocker] dismissed Soleimani's words as an Iranian bid to become an "indispensable power broker" in Iraq as part of a "brilliant tactical game" meant to keep the US and Iraqi governments "off balance" and to spread Iran's influence in Iraq, according to the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But Crocker agreed to wait and see if Iran had "truly made a strategic readjustment," according to this US account, adding that "actions need to be visible" and "we will know soon enough."
[. . .]
Doubt on the US side runs deep, though Soleimani listed Iranian aims and even "common goals with the United States" in Iraq that virtually mirror stated US policy points, according to the description of the meeting.
"When we first saw it, we thought it was too good to be true," says the American official who provided details of the talks. "But there are so many layers of gray."
Among them, how to quantify Iran's compliance when much of the intelligence includes the discovery of caches of weapons – some of the materiel from Iran – that could have arrived in Iraq anytime this year or before. Or how to weigh the interrogations of a handful of Iraqi militants caught by US forces last year, who are purported to have said they received training – sometimes from Lebanese Hezbollah instructors – in Iran.
Dr. iRack is no idealist, but he has argued many times that there is a potential deal to be made here. Because both the United States and Iran ultimately have an interest in an American departure from Iraq that avoids leaving behind a failed state, there may be the foundation for an agreement that trades an end to Iranian lethal assistance to Iraqi Shia militants and a normalization of Iran-Iraq relations in exchange for American assurances against directly or indirectly engaging in violent regime change against Tehran (all within the context of a phased U.S. withdrawal from Iraq). There is zero chance that the Bush administration will pursue this strategy, but the next administration might have an opportunity to do so.
16 comments:
Engagement is the name of the game. The Iranians have much to gain by it and little to lose. That is obvious. From the Iranian perspective, equal footed engagement is tantamount to recognition of its status as a regional superpower.
Dr. Irack, it is my understanding that Tehran and Baghdad already enjoy normalized relations. So why, as you suggest, should this be traded in exchange for a security guarantee? I'm missing something here...
Well, well , well, what a big surprise (not).
anna missed
I think that the Iranian government is dysfunctional in many ways. Promoting conflict among the different Shia militia groups and against the US is proof of their problems. They have many natural and long running alliances in Iraq. It is in their best long term interests to get the US out of Iraq. Help chase out AQ and broker a peace and they are golden.
Prolonging conflict in Iraq just to pull our beard makes no sense. Maybe they really don't control Sadr.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 05/17/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention updated throughout the day…so check back often.
#11:19 "Prolonging conflict in Iraq just to pull our beard makes no sense. Maybe they really don't control Sadr."
Maybe not:
"Sadr was now the biggest threat to peace in Iraq, Soleimani said, echoing past Pentagon assessments. "We now recognize [that] Sadrists have gotten outside anyone's control" which is a "dangerous development for Iraq, for Iran and for all Shia," he indicated, according to the description. Iran could not control Sadr even in Iran, where the cleric is currently taking advanced religious training, and his return to Iraq would "be a big danger."
[...]
Soleimani also, according to the official, said that Iran would "not stand in the way of [Iraqi] efforts to negotiate an agreement with the US," which he termed a "good thing for Iraq," referring to a deal on the long-term status of American troops in Iraq."
One things for sure, that this mess with Sadr has worked wonders to sketch in the outlines of what has always been the invisible elephant in the room - Iranian influence WITHIN the current Iraqi government, and the tacit acknowledgment and or even complicity of such by the U.S. government. Its not at all possible that Iran has been out of the loop throughout the entire process of the Badr Organization morphing into the present day Iraqi government and its security forces, any more than its impossible for the U.S. to to be clueless about major internal Iraqi security arrangements to be negotiated in Iran by a general in the Quds Force. The only logical explanation is of course, that in spite of all the overblown hysterical rhetoric, both the U.S. and Iran have been working in parallel tandem to devour the corpse of Iraq - most especially in the elimination of or even a hint of an independent nationalist Iraq - as represented by JAM and or any coalition nationalist movement.
anna missed
The US engages with Iran, fails to show up in Lebanon...Any connection?
We have had contacts with Iran since the regime came to power in 1979, at several levels (including then VP Bush 41 in person). It just never goes anywhere as far as ultimate peace. Because it can't. We did cooperate on the Taliban recently and arms for hostages in Iran/Contra.
There would have to be a confluence of interests, and letting us off the hook in Iraq so we can promote democracy by example isn't a confluence, it's a conflict.
No argument on AWOL in Lebanon. I don't know if there's a connection, other than we are kinda fully committed.
We sent the UN instead. It worked out the way it usually does.
Dr. iRack, is this another fiasco? Another blunder?
I get so confused when you don't use the key words I'm supposed to remember so that I can blame the neocons.
/sarcasm.......
The meeting was on April 4th, and the public is hearing about this now. Yet in the meantime, the drumbeat against Iran has continued unabated. Why is that, I wonder?
The Talabani-Suleimani meeting was previously reported... by McClatchy on April 28th, and by Abu Muqawama on April 29th when that article was tagged.
elf,
Why do you think a stable, democratic Iraq would pose a threat to Iran? Last time I checked, Iran was claiming to be a stable democracy. OK, it wouldn't exactly qualify for EU membership, but compared to the Saudis they're Thomas bloody Jefferson. The only way a successful Iraq stands at all as a model threatening Iran is that, while an "Islamic democracy," it doesn't have actual Shi'a clergy in the power structure. But I'm not sure they can't spin that as "different country, different circumstances"--certainly, I am far from convinced that a stable, successful "democratic" Iraq under Shi'a domination is a bigger threat to Iran than a fragmented, violent Iraq full of armed Saudi proxies.
Please note that I normally just lurk here and claim no expertise whatsoever on these matters.
A. Tory,
Not much of an expert myself.
"Why do you think a stable, democratic Iraq would pose a threat to Iran?"
I don't necessarily; I think that's the party line. I don't know if such an outcome is possible if Iran and Syria are left unmolested. We could at least help the movements in Iran that want our help stir the pot.
I think that back at the beginning of this thing Bush was heavily influenced by the example of Reagan bringing down the Wall, and Natan Shransky (former Soviet refusenik) visiting the White House that he believed he could do the same thing in the ME.
The brick walls we ran into: the ME is not Eastern Europe, the Iraqi's are not the Poles, and Sistani is not John Paul II. And Bush is definitely not Ronald Reagan.
Having said that, any kind of stable, successful Iraq is a threat by example to the rest of the region. Maybe.
Personally I am not convinced enough to bet my country on it. As I have said earlier, I thought he was establishing a foothold and was going to keep going. I think he lost his nerve.
I'm a bit bemused by the notion that the Iraqis would be as obtuse as many Americans when it comes to tagging all opposition as "Sadrist."
First, there are different sorts of Sadrists -- those who support the son of martyred leader Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, and those who support the old man Sadr's image of a "nationalistic" theological-political movement, a group we tend to term Fadhila and their party Islamic Virtue. In other words, there's a lot of difference between Moqtada al-Sadr and Mahmud al-Hasani, even differences between the young Sadr and Ahmad al-Hasan or Muhammad al-Yaqubi, right?
This salient fact wouldn't be unknown to a seasoned Iranian commander. Nor would the fact that a key problem with the so-called "Sadrists" is that Moqtada doesn't have much control over them.
He's parsed out leadership to regional commanders (errr, warlords) in the three southernmost provinces (Basra, Amara and Nasiriya) and other splinter groups that say they're "JAM" actually aren't really in operational communication with him or even his regional commanders.
The Iranians have helped to create this problem by willingly arming NOT JAM as a whole, but rather by making sales to all buyers in the many Mahdist insurgencies as they fragmented in response to the challenge of the Sunnis after Samarra.
This was a concerted policy of the Iranians because: 1) it pushed arms faster to those on the frontlines against the anti-Shiist forces; 2) it bought widespread influenced over all the Shi'i actors in Iraq; 3) it dissipated complete control of Mahdist forces arrayed under JAM against the Sunni insurgents.
Divide and rule, so to speak.
There is some truth when al-Maliki labels these Sadrist bands "rogue" or "outlaw," in the sense that they aren't formally tied into the command and control of Moqtada al-Sadr's mission. Iran played some role in that.
I also highly doubt that Moqtada al-Sadr is being a pain in the neck in Qom. Currently, he's studying under Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr's chosen successor Kazim al-Haeri, who has strong ties to the formal clerical Iranian leadership there.
Kazim al-Haeri makes no doubts on his website (he really has his own blog, and I've linked to it here before; doesn't read as well as the Quiestist al-Sistani's, but it's a good blog) and in his public teachings that the roots of his politics and theology dig deeply into Khomeinist orthodoxy.
While Moqtada al-Sadr and his father disputed some of this, I can't believe for a second that he would have estranged either himself or his teacher's school from the mullahs. Al-Haeri has reined him in bofore, at one time replacing him as a clerical leader in Najaf.
The real problem for the Iranians is that ISCI and Dawa remain pliable, regardless of the latest al-Maliki bluster. They're a known quantity and will deliver.
The "Sadrists," which range from Fadhila and smaller sects to JAM, are ga-ga over Mahdism. By this, I mean that they see Iraq as the locus of the pan-Shiism world, not Iran, and are convinced that the Twelth Imam is being guided by the earnest faith of Iraqi believers.
This is true no matter if it comes from the lips of Yaqubi or Moqtada.
At its most pressing incarnation, one could mention the Soldiers of the Sky movement that erupted over the past two years.
This becomes a real problem for both MNF-I and Iran. How does one "negotiate" with Mahdists who believe the Twelth Imam's return is now, that traditional authority no longer in relevant and that the occupation and Persian meddling restrains the Shi'i peoples from building a house fitting for the Imam to reside.
I don't have a crystal ball, but if you asked me I would suggest that OMS/NICE/JAM, et al, easily will win in the provincial electiosn throughout the south except in those areas controlled by ISCI (Najaf, Karbala). This will formalize the defacto rule they already enjoy in the three southernmost provinces.
In the later round of federal elections, the parliamentarians currently allied with al-Sadr (about 30 or so) will expand and likely form a bloc larger than that of ISCI and Dawa, but probably not so large as those two parties plus Fadhila/Islamic Virtue and Allawi's secular and nationalistic coalition.
In other words, in the "universe" of Iraq, the Sadrists (including Fadhila) will not be able to control all of the country, but will be able along with Allawi, the groundswell of Sunni Arab nationalists from the "Awakening" and the Kurds to remain a bulwark against Iranian encroachment, for different reasons.
And this is why, ultimately, we play a better hand than the Iranians. Tehran wants a united Iraq, but one under a leadership pliable to them.
We also want a united Iraq, but we don't necessarily care if the parliament eventually is controlled by Sadrists (Islamic Virtue and NICE), Allawi secularistis, Kurds and "Awakening" Sunnis and strong regional governments modeled on KRG emerge.
Irony upon irony: Eventually, our strongest ally in Iraq is Moqtada al-Sadr's movement and Fadhila, combined with the Kurds who are going their own way and the Sunni Arabs who would like their own region of sorts, too.
The parties we're supporting probably will be the ones we eventually drop.
Irony upon ironies.
SNLII,
Trechant as always.
Yo where's the blog?
don't know much about COIN but do know that strategically speaking everything in Iraq will have been for naught if the Iranians get nukes. Iranians are playing for time. pull the trigger!
SNLII,
I agree that, long-term, the Sadr movement probably is the basis for a stable Iraq as a counter to Iran, but do you think that such an outcome will be palatable for the American public/establishment and, if not, how that may play out?
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