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USADI Commentary
Checking
Iran’s Growing Influence in Iraq
Iran’s
foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi began his three day visit to
Iraq on Tuesday shortly after the United States’ Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice paid a surprise visit there.
During her
visit, Rice warned Iran to stop its destabilization campaign in
Iraq. In response to a question from CNN’s correspondent in
Iraq, Dr. Rice said that Iran “need[s] to be transparent, [have]
neighborly relations, not relations that try somehow to have
undue influence in the country through means that are not
transparent...”
She later
told Al Arabiya television that “Iran should be a transparent
neighbor, that it should be involved in Iraqi affairs as a good
neighbor would be involved, not in some surreptitious way".
The following
day in Washington, State Department’s spokesman Richard Boucher
told reporters that "Iran's relations with people inside Iraq
are not transparent” and that it must “stay out of its
neighbor's politics.” "They need to be normal relations,
friendly relations, between neighbors, but they shouldn't be in
the nature of political influence," he warned Tehran.
Foreign
Minister Kharrazi’s trip to Iraq, just 48 hours after Secretary
Rice’s visit there, was not by chance. It was Iran’s way of
reacting to strong warnings coming from the Bush administration.
It was an attempt to show Tehran was bent on continuing its
underhanded and sinister campaign in Iraq.
In response
to press questions, Kharrazi stressed Iran’s intention to
continue to wield influence in Iraq whose new government’s
cabinet is made up of officials with close personal, religious
and political ties to Iran's ruling ayatollahs.
Tehran’s
designs for Iraq extend beyond a mere geo-political rivalry with
the United States. Ayatollah Khomeini published a book entitled
Velayat-e-faqih while exiled in Najaf seminaries in Iraq. Once
in power in 1979, he put in practice the book as a blueprint for
new regime. "There are no real boundaries between Islamic
countries," Khomeini stressed in his book.
Given its
large Shia population and its geo-strategic location, Iraq has
always been viewed as fertile ground for Tehran to exercise its
expansionist foreign policy rooted in Islamic fundamentalism.
Having a regime in Iraq heavily influenced by Tehran would
immensely enhance Iran’s regional dominance and its ability to
project power in the region. And the way Khomeini’s mullahs see
it, “Iraq would be a ripe apple which would be plucked up sooner
or later.”
The
Washington Times reported last week that Dr. Abdullah Rasheed
al-Jabouri, former governor of Iraq's Diyala province told the
‘Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus’ in the House “about the
threat facing Iraq from its old enemy, Iran.” He told the House
hearing that "We managed to capture many Iranian agents or Iraqi
and foreign nationals who were on Iran's payroll and had
received training in terrorist activities."
Dr. al-Jabouri
also said that the “United States made a mistake in 2003 when
U.S. forces bombed the camps of the military wing of the
resistance, the People's Mojahedin, which had operated from
Diyala since 1986. He said the MEK provided essential security
against Iranian infiltration.”
"I believe
the bombing of the Mojahedin camps at the outset of the war was
a major blunder, even more so was the U.S. decision to disarm
them," he said. "This left the entire province wide open to
Iranian meddling and interference."
An Iraqi
government, compromised by Iran’s ruling theocracy would pose a
significant threat to the regional stability. The ensuing power
realignment in the region will have huge global reverberations.
Given the
realities on the ground in Iraq, there can be no doubt that the
clerical regime in Iran, with its abysmal human rights record,
nuclear weapons drive and continued destabilizing campaign in
Iraq, is a clear and present danger to its own citizens and the
rest of the world.
Renowned
historian Bernard Lewis, recently wrote in the Foreign Affairs
that the main threat “to the development of democracy in Iraq
and ultimately in other Arab and Muslim countries lies not in
any inherent social quality or characteristic, but in very
determined efforts that are being made to ensure democracy's
failure." Lewis’s comments apply to Iran and illustrate that a
coordinated transformation from theocracy to secular democracy
is the only way to guarantee an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.
Iran is
leading “determined efforts” to undermine Iraq’s nascent
democracy with the aim of consolidating and concentrating its
influence there. It must be stopped, whatever it takes.
(USADI)
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The Washington Times
May 11, 2005
Putting Tehran on notice
Iranian Foreign Minister
Kamal Kharrazi's defiant proclamation at the United Nations that
Iran will press on with its nuclear-enrichment program is yet
another ominous sign that ruling mullacracy is hellbent on
obtaining the A-bomb. In early April, the Iranian National
Council of Resistance revealed Tehran had been digging tunnels
close to the Parchin military facility, a suspected nuclear site
northeast of the capital, to disguise its nuclear-enrichment
activities.
There is also ample evidence
that Iran's money, weapons and agents are fanning the flames of
insurgency in Iraq. Tehran has spent some $4 billion in Iraq
since the ouster of Saddam Hussein and has 40,000 Iraqi
operatives on its payroll.
The Iranian regime is keen on
using Iraq as a springboard to spread its fundamentalist brand
of Islam throughout the entire Middle East. Ahmad Jannati,
chairman of Iran's powerful, unelected body known as the
Guardian Council, said, "It is the duty of every Muslim to stand
against the United States and threaten its interests anywhere."
Taking heed, hundreds of suicide volunteers marched in Tehran
last month, vowing to attack Americans in Iraq and targets in
Israel. These developments underscore the need for the world
community to meet the Iranian challenge -- head-on and without
delay.
For more than two decades,
the international community has tried to placate the mullahs.
While the Europeans, taking the appeasement route, have insisted
on an all-carrot approach to tame Tehran's rogue behavior, the
United States has offered its own set of incentives, starting
with trading arms for hostages in 1985, blacklisting the main
Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen, or PMOI, in
1997, easing the anti-Tehran sanctions in 2000 and bombing PMOI
camps during the Iraq war in 2003, despite the group's steering
clear of the conflict.
This olive-branch policy has
only served to solidify the grip of the most anti-Western wing
of the ruling theocracy… It does not take a rocket scientist,
however, to realize that no amount of economic and political
concessions would bring Iran's hardline rulers around. The
likelihood of a moderate state emerging from the ruling
theocracy is as remote as that of a leopard changing its spots.
The Iranian regime remains the world's worst abuser of human
rights, a terrorist state second to none and unwavering in its
pursuit of nuclear weapons.
There is a growing consensus
that the liberation of Iran is a prerequisite for a nuclear-free
Middle East and a stable, democratic Iraq. To achieve this goal,
however, there is no need for foreign military intervention.
Developments in recent months inside and outside of Iran have
made it plain that the corrupt fundamentalists in Iran can be
defeated by the men and women they have oppressed for a quarter
century…
In his State of the Union
Address, President Bush told the Iranian people, "As you stand
for your own liberty, America stands with you." To translate
those words into action, the administration should reach out to
Tehran's greatest and most feared nemesis, the highly trained
People's Mujahedeen. The first step is to end the blacklisting
of the group, which a majority in the House and 32 Senators have
described as a "legitimate resistance movement."
The timing could not be
better, considering that the State Department has recognized its
personnel as "protected persons" under the Fourth Geneva
Convention and 2.8 million Iraqis have backed this
anti-fundamentalist group as the most effective bulwark against
Iranian-inspired extremism in Iraq. This would put Tehran on
notice that Washington means business and assure the millions
who are pursuing democratic change in Iran that America is on
their side.
Excerpts from a piece by Ali Safavi, president of Near East
Policy Research, a consulting and policy-analysis firm in
Washington.
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The Globe and Mail
May 17, 2005
Canada Curbing Iran Diplomatic
Contacts
Ottawa --
Canada will further limit diplomatic contacts with Iran to push
for a new investigation into the death of a Canadian
photojournalist. Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said
Tuesday that he will not close the Canadian embassy in Tehran or
recall the ambassador, but will keep pressing Iran for a new
investigation into the death of Zahra Kazemi.
He said formal
contacts with Iran will be limited to three subjects: Ms. Kazemi,
Iran's human rights records and Iran's flouting of nuclear
non-proliferation rules.
An Iranian
appeal court listened Monday to arguments from Kazemi family
lawyers urging a new investigation into her death, but it
adjourned without a decision.
Mr. Pettigrew
said the Iranians have to come clean on questions about Ms.
Kazemi, who died in Iranian custody two years ago.
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The Washington Times
(Editorial)
May 16, 2005
Is Tehran Toying
with Europe?
In recent days, the European Union
has toughened somewhat its rhetorical treatment of Iran's
nuclear-weapons program. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said
Britain could back referring Iranian violations of nuclear
agreements with Europe to the United Nations Security Council,
where Tehran could face economic or political sanctions.
The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany -- the
"European Union 3" nations who have been trying to negotiate a
resolution with Tehran for nearly two years -- have warned Iran
that it would be courting trouble if it restarts enrichment
activities.
For its part, Iran, which has spent the past few years
blustering about its plans to go forward with enrichment and
asserting its "rights" to do pretty much whatever it pleases
with regard to its nuclear program, has sounded a somewhat less
bellicose tone in recent days.
There are several ways to interpret the recent moves by the EU
and Iran. One is that the Europeans, fed up with nearly two
years of broken promises from Tehran, have finally decided to
stand up to the mullahs. Were this indeed the case, it would
suggest that the Bush administration's policy initiated several
months ago of supporting the EU's efforts to reward Iran with
incentives if it comes clean about its nuclear-weapons programs
is working.
While we commend President Bush and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice for their extraordinary efforts to persuade the
Europeans to take a realistic position toward Tehran, little
appears to have changed for now. There is still a great deal we
don't know about Iran's nuclear programs, a result of Tehran's
determination to conceal things and the inability of Western
intelligence agencies to penetrate a hostile, secretive
authoritarian regime.
In fact, Iran's behavior -- whether fomenting a crisis one day
or suggesting that it is prepared to negotiate in good faith the
next -- may have at least as much to do with how successful it
is in surmounting technical barriers as it does with the West's
diplomatic approach: When Iran's nuclear activities hit
technical barriers, it suspends them. When the problems get
resolved, Iran unfreezes the program…
There are other problems. Given the fact that centrifuges can be
produced in small facilities -- no larger than a typical U.S.
home -- that are easy to conceal, it is entirely possible that
Iran has separate covert centrifuge facilities enriching uranium
for nuclear weapons that Western intelligence agencies know
nothing about.
Nor is the Western policy approach likely to change anytime
soon. Iran's elections will take place June 17. Although the
elections are unlikely to stop the mullahs' A-bomb programs,
they are likely to strengthen the hand of those in the West,
particularly Europe, who will argue that we need to give the new
Iranian president a chance to organize his new government, etc.
That will give the regime more time to operate without
meaningful pressure to end its arms programs and to continue its
work to overcome technical obstacles to producing nuclear
weapons…
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