Iraq in the Arms of Iran Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Plenty of progressives have gone quiet on Iraq, tired of wasting words and ink on advice that's consistently ignored, and genuinely confounded by how to untangle the disastrousw results of Administration policy.

The plot thickens even further with today's reports of tightening security ties between Baghdad and Tehran.  The US remains mired in a dangerous and uncertain mission in Iraq in an effort to buttress that country against the influence of terrorists and extremists.  But even as we do so, Iraq is embracing the government of the regions most dangerous proliferator and most open antagonist of the United States. 

So one of the primary outcomes our Iraq mission seeks to avoid is happening under our nose.  The US is protesting that these growing ties are having a destablizing effect on Iraq by empowering Shiite militias, but the Iraqi government does not care.  We're in no position to argue that Iraq need not turn to Iran for security, since the manifest reality is neither we nor the Iraqi armed forces can provide it.

Meanwhile our own senior military personnel are arguing in public over whether troop levels in Iraq are adequate.  After the NY Times and Wash Post reported a senior military intelligence officer saying that more manpower was needed to contain the violence in Anbar province, the best his superior could come up with was that current troop levels were adequate for the goal of training Iraq's security forces, and that trying to combat the insurgency was outside the scope of their mission.  If that's the best we're able to do, no wonder Iraq is turning to Iran.

After rounds of consultations with Middle Eastern leaders who agreed that the Iraq invasion was a disaster but were divided on whether or not we should leave (Iran, not surprisingly, offered to help show us the door), Kofi Annan pronounced that the US is now in a position where "it cannot stay and it cannot leave."   This is pretty much how the Bush Administration seems to look at it:  they won't beef up the mission to a point where it has a fighting chance of containing the insurgency, and nor will they pull out.   

What Kofi Annan left out is that the only thing worth than either deciding to stay and positioning the US with adequate troops for possible to success or deciding to leave, is declining to make any decision at all.

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

I can't avoid recalling at this time that when Mr. Maliki visited the United States, some Democrats, including Rahm Emanuel, lead a grandstanding drive to cancel Maliki's scheduled address to Congress, because Maliki was not sufficiently supportive of the Israeli slaughter in Lebanon. I'm certain that clever move reassured Maliki tremendously.

It's no surprise that Maliki would see the need to turn to Iran for security. Aside from its proximity, Iran has ties inside Iraq, and an understanding of and influence over Iraqi politics and political leaders that the US will never have. The US interest in Iraq is temporary; Iran will always have deep interests there.

[Cal]

But even as we do so, Iraq is embracing the government of the regions most dangerous proliferator...

While I agree that the Iranian regime is despicable, how can you say Iran is the "most dangerous proliferator"? So far as I know, it hasn't given WMD's or dangerous technology to any other country -- unlike say, Pakistan.

It's odd that Pakistan gets no blame for giving Iran, Libya and North Korea nuclear technology, and is somehow deemed less dangerous than a nation that's years away from the bomb.