Events in Iraq are adding new fuel to the cold war between Tehran and Washington.
Irans ruling mullahs were happy to see the demise of the Saddam Hussein regime last year, and were quick to seize the opportunity to strengthen ties with their neighbour especially with the predominantly Shiite south. Thousands of Iranian pilgrims flocked to the holy places of Najaf and Karbala. Iran stepped up its support for Shiite religious and social institutions in Iraq, and increased its aid to the three main political movements among the Iraqi Shia the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) led by the Hakim family, the Dawa Party of Ibrahim Jaafari, and the Sadrist movement of the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Between April 2003 and June 2004, when Iraq was governed by a US-led administration, this newly-enhanced Iranian role aroused the suspicions of the American proconsul in Baghdad, Paul Bremer. (His British counterpart, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, sharing the line of the Foreign Office in London, took a somewhat more relaxed view of Iranian intentions.)
It might have been expected that relations between Baghdad and Tehran would blossom once Mr Bremer had left Baghdad, after handing power to the interim Iraqi government of Ayad Allawi. But in several respects relations have soured. By early August, a war of words had erupted between the two capitals. Senior Iraqi officials accuse Tehran of
An article in a hard-line Iranian newspaper, the Tehran Times, singled out the trio of Iraqi officials who, it said, were conspiring against Iran: the defence and interior ministers and the governor of Najaf.
The idea that the Allawi government might act as the Bush administrations instrument of regime change in Tehran even found an echo in the American capital. In an outspoken piece in the Washington Post, the well-known columnist Jim Hoagland warned the administration: This is not strategy; this is folly.
As so often with the Middle East, it is necessary to separate rhetoric from reality. There are certainly tensions between Tehran and Baghdad. Iran does not want to see an American client state on its western border, especially when it believes it already has one on its eastern flank (the Hamid Karzai regime in Afghanistan).
The Iranian governments aim is in truth rather simple: to see the Americans leave Iraq as soon as possible and a friendly regime emerge in Baghdad. It wants levers of influence in Iraq, but it is wary of seriously antagonizing the Americans, especially at a time when the Bush administration is piling on the international pressure over Irans nuclear programme.
For his part, Ayad Allawi is no big fan of Irans ruling mullahs. He is a Shiite but a secular Shiite, and as an Iraqi nationalist he is anxious to dissuade all of his countrys neighbours from interfering in its affairs. But he is also a realist, and as such will not want to pick a fight with such a powerful and intimate neighbour as Iran. However close his past and present ties to the Americans, the idea that he would work with the Washington hawks to overthrow the regime of the ayatollahs is far-fetched.
Jim Hoagland argues that US policy is guided by the mistaken belief that Iran is behind everything thats going wrong in Iraq (including the Al-Sadr revolt). Accordingly, the US administration is (in his view) trying to punish Tehran and Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi politician who was once the Pentagons favourite Iraqi but is now regarded by some in Washington as having been Irans man all along.
Mr Hoagland is half-right. There are certainly those in Washington who are exaggerating the extent of Iranian mischief-making. But his analysis seems to be coloured by his admiration for Mr Chalabi, who in reality is a minor complication in the US-Iraq-Iran triangle, not a significant factor. In any case, the significance of Mr Chalabis ties with Tehran should not be overstated. In his long and colourful political career, he has made and broken countless alliances, remaining loyal only to himself and his immodest political ambitions.
One is the strength of nationalism among the Iraqis, including the Iraqi Shia. Most of the Shia, including most of their religious leaders, reject the Iranian model of government. They are ready to accept help of various kinds from Iran, but not to build the new Iraq according to an Iranian blueprint.
Second, it remains the case that the Bush administration, divided between foreign-policy hawks and doves, has no coherent policy towards Iran. The neo-conservatives and others who have long favoured regime change in Iran have recently become more vocal, and Irans persistent deception over its nuclear intentions has to a certain extent played into their hands.
But there are those in Washington (just as there are in Europe) who realize that matters are not as simple as the neo-cons would have us believe. For America, as for others, the war in Iraq and its aftermath have been a bruising experience. As a result, the possibility that this administration, or even a second-term Bush administration, would adopt a highly risky, highly controversial policy of seeking the overthrow of the Iranian mullahs appears (mercifully) remote.
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