How to Win in Iraq Without Losing to Iran

LONDON: The testimonies of General David Petraeus, commander of the American forces in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador in Baghdad, to the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees earlier this week have thrust the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq to the center of the presidential campaign.

The prime purpose of the hearings was to evaluate the effectiveness of the US troop surge, launched 15 months ago, to reduce violence in Iraq, and examine the prospect of lowering American military presence in Iraq. "The progress, while real, is fragile and reversible," reported Petraeus. So, once the additional five combat brigades deployed in Iraq are withdrawn by July, he plans a freeze, maintaining the US military presence at 140,000.

The fragile state of Iraq's security stems from the malevolent intentions of Iran, contended Petraeus. The greatest immediate threat to security came from the Tehran-backed "special groups" of Shiite radicals. Over the longer term there was also the prospect of the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Hence, the need for a post-surge pause before contemplating any further drawdown of US troops.

Ambassador Crocker concurred, stressing the evil designs of Iran.

The Bush administration is obsessed with Iran and sees it as a greater threat than the Sunni Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. That switch of a primary enemy, however, has complicated the situation in Iraq.

The Sunni Al Qaeda is part of a pan-national movement, which does not have the backing of any sovereign state, and it has lost much of the standing acquired initially by opposing the occupation by an infidel power.

Ignoring the basic fact that Sunni Arabs numbered only a third of the Shiite Arabs in Iraq, Al Qaeda pursued relentless massacre of Shiite civilians which turned off most Iraqis. Its policy of "if you are not with us, then you are against us" toward fellow-Sunnis alienated most Sunnis as well, particularly in the Anbar province, which occupies nearly a third of Iraq.

These blunders by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia provided the American policymakers an opportunity to neutralize it. They offered guns and money to the Sunni tribal leaders to switch sides. The tribal shaikhs set up local "Awakening" councils, consisting of men – called Sons of Iraq – armed with weapons supplied by the Pentagon. There are now 91,000 Sons of Iraq, armed and paid by the Pentagon, manning neighborhood-watch systems and protecting government properties.

The relationship of the Sunni Sons of Iraq with the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki remains ill-defined. So too does their long-term future: Will they be absorbed fully or partially in the Iraqi security system run by Shiite ministers and officials, or will they be given jobs in the civilian sector?

Tehran watched quietly as the Bush administration, for its own reasons, overthrew Saddam Hussein. A sovereign state, Iran has the largest population in the region, with 90 percent of Iranians being Shiite. It is four times the size of Iraq, shares land and water borders with nine countries, and has a coast that runs the length of the Persian Gulf and part of the Arabian Sea, not to mention the landlocked Caspian Sea. It also has the second largest reserves of natural gas and conventional oil in the world, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2007.

Yet, for half a century preceding the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Iran's regional ambitions were blocked by Iraq.

In the eight-year war between the two neighbors, started by Saddam's 1980 invasion of Iran, US President Ronald Reagan maintained a pretense of neutrality. In reality, he provided covert support to the Iraqi dictator, while some officials in his administration sold weapons to Iran to see its war with Iraq continue.

In the mid-1980s, when Saddam's defeat became a real possibility, the Pentagon introduced the US Navy into the conflict. While the ostensible purpose was to escort tankers carrying Kuwaiti oil through the Gulf to foreign destinations, this was an overt American tilt toward Iraq. The war ended in a draw.

Following the expulsion of the occupying Iraqi forces from Kuwait in February 1991, President George H.W. Bush, leading a coalition of 28 nations, called on Iraqis to rise up against Saddam. The Kurds in the north did, and so did the Shiites in the south. The US came to the rescue of the Iraqi Kurds under the guise of the UN Security Council resolution 688 concerning "the repression of Iraqi civilian population." By contrast, Saddam deployed helicopter gun ships and mowed down Shiite rebels in the south without anybody raising a finger.

Having broken the wall of a dam, the current Bush administration finds itself engaged in a zero-sum game, as a virtual equal, with Iran in the region. That is, America's loss has become Iran's automatic gain, and vice-versa. As such, reducing Iran's influence to zero in Iraq, as was the case during the long rule of the pan-Arab Baath Party, is a grossly unrealistic aim.

On the other side, Iran's leaders have made a realistic assessment of the Iraqi scene. They realize that, leaving aside a secular minority, Shiites are divided among four religious parties, two part of Maliki's coalition government and the other two in opposition. Iran treats all equally. That’s why they succeeded in brokering a ceasefire between Maliki's government and the Mahdi Army militia of Moqtada al Sadr in Basra on March 30.

The Iranian government is close to the leading members of Maliki's coalition government – Al Daawa, headed by Maliki, and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq of Ayatollah Abdul Aziz al Hakim. The latter was established in Tehran in 1982 during the Iran-Iraq War. Its militia, the Badr Brigades, was raised, trained and armed by Iran.

Al Daawa leaders, including Maliki, took refuge in Iran during the course of the Iran-Iraq war. Little wonder, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad greeted Maliki as a long-lost brother during two visits to Tehran. Maliki returned the hospitality when Ahmadinejad visited Baghdad last month. Though the five-year-old Sadrist movement does not owe birth or sustenance to Iran, Sadr takes refuge there when he finds his life endangered in Iraq.

The Iranian government deplored the spectacle of Shiites killing one another when Maliki launched his offensive in Basra with the purported aim of disarming rogue militias, with the toll mounting to more than 300 in a week. Once the Americans and the British had intervened on Maliki's side, Iran had no qualms about assisting the Mahdi Army militia at a tactical command level. That apparently provided the latest evidence to Petraeus underscoring the "destructive role" of Iran.

US voters may be impatient to pull out of Iraq, but it’s no longer an issue of securing Iraq. The scenario of an independent Iraq without the American military protection has become inextricably linked with regional power balance between rising Shiite Iran and the predominantly Sunni Arab Middle East. If a Democratic candidate is elected president in November, he or she must devise a plan to bring the US troops home from Iraq which, somehow, deprives Iran from acquiring even greater influence in the region. Thus, due to the Bush administration's policy blunders, Iraq has now become an Iranian issue as well.