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Commentary
by U.S. Alliance for Democratic Iran
Looking
for Iraq’s Security in the Wrong Places
The much-hyped talks between the United States
and Iran over the security of Iraq finally took
place on Monday. A sober assessment of reports
from Baghdad, however, clearly confirms the
predictions that Tehran had gone to these talks
to buy time and to partially ease growing
international pressure. Iran, which had to bow
to the hard realities in Iraq and to an emerging
regional alignment at odds with its hegemonic
ambitions, broke a 27- year old taboo and
entered the Baghdad talk without dealing with
its core issue: Tehran’s destructive role in the
ongoing mayhem in Iraq.
While the US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C.
Crocker, pressed Iran on specific security
challenges resulting from Iran’s destabilizing
meddling, Tehran’s Ambassador, Hassan Kazemi
Qumi, a notorious former Quds Force
commander-turned-diplomat, talked about
mechanisms and particulars of further talks and
repeated Tehran’s “declaratory positions” about
US occupation and need for its immediate
withdrawal.
Amb. Crocker sought specific deeds by Tehran in
line with its stated interest for a secure,
unified, and democratic Iraq, Kazemi Qumi,
however, talked about the need for Iran to train
and arm Iraq’s security forces. Translation: Not
only we will not stop arming and training
terrorists and extremist militia forces inside
Iraq’s security agencies, we seek to make it
even official.
Coming to these negotiations, Tehran, which had
downgraded, twice, the level of its chief
negotiator in these talks from Deputy foreign
minister to an ambassador, had four years of
experience in prolonging non-substantive talks
and talking about talks. This skill was very
much perfected through the EU’s four years of
fruitless negotiations with Iran over its
nuclear program. This is just one of the reasons
why diplomatic norm of resolving conflicts
through talks fails miserably every time when it
is exercised in dealings with Tehran.
Qumi however could not hide Tehran’s deep-rooted
and strategic fear of the widening impact of its
main anti-fundamentalist opposition, the Iranian
Mojahedin, in Iraq. The group, while confined to
its base called Camp Ashraf, has acted as a
catalyst for engendering a genuine Iraqi
national reconciliation and a democratic front
adamantly opposed to Iran’s destabilization of
Iraq.
Knowing full well that the more Tehran leaders
make the MEK a main item in their list of
demands, the more MEK’s prominence in any policy
equations toward Tehran is underscored, Qumi was
in bind. Ignoring the MEK factor, however, was
not an option, and Qumi opted to ask for the
expulsion of the group form Iraq. Of course Qumi
is fully aware that even relocation of a member
of the MEK form Camp Ashraf is a violation of
several international covenants covering the
status of group’s members as “protected persons”
in Iraq.
The Los Angeles Times reported on Monday that in
the Baghdad talks, Iran would want a deal on the
Iranian Mojahedin as well as the release of five
Quds Force commanders currently detained by the
U.S. Army in Iraq. The Times, however, noted
that “A far bigger prize for Tehran than the
five Iranian diplomats detained by the U.S.
military would be the Mujahedin Khalq, which is
committed to the overthrow of Iran's ruling
clerics... The group is based at Camp Ashraf, in
Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, home to a few
thousand of the movements' followers. Tehran
would want the camp closed and to have its
members handed over or dispersed around the
world.”
Following the talks, Iran’s state-run media
described the meeting as a show of Tehran’s
strength and the United States’ utter weakness.
Well, this is what
you get for negotiating about Iraq’s security
with a rogue regime and the top instigator of
Iraq’s insecurity.
(USADI)
U.S.-Iran
discussions yield lots of charges, little accord
McClatchy Newspapers, May
29, 2007
BAGHDAD — U.S. and Iranian diplomats largely
echoed the growing acrimony between Washington
and Tehran in their first round of talks on
Iraqi security Monday.
After four hours of face-to-face, closed-door
talks, they appeared to have agreed on just one
thing: Like their Green Zone host, Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki, both sides want
stability in Iraq under the current government.
The problem is, Washington thinks the best way
to achieve that is to get Iran out of the Iraqi
picture. Tehran thinks the U.S. should go.AAA
In a feature of the talks that made them more
awkward, Crocker and a half-dozen aides,
including deputy chief of mission Daniel
Speckhard, addressed the Iranian ambassador
directly. Kazemi Qomi and his aides, on the
other hand, generally addressed the Iraqi
moderator and staff, according to an Iraqi
official with knowledge of the talks.
U.S. and Iranian
Officials Meet in Baghdad, but Talks Yield No
Breakthroughs
New York Times, May 29,
2007
BAGHDAD, May 28 — AAA The meeting between
Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker of the United States
and Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qumi of Iran — held
in the offices of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki
— produced no agreements nor a promise of a
follow-up meeting between the nations,
participants saidAAA
The meeting occurred against a backdrop of
worsening conflict in Iraq and deepening
animosity between Iran and the United States;
each accuses the other of contributing to Iraq’s
instability.
The ambassadors suggested in their comments
after the meeting that there was no detailed
exchange of ideas nor any comprehensive
discussion about mutual criticisms.AAA
He said he “laid out before the Iranians a
number of our direct, specific concerns about
their behavior in Iraq.” The United States has
repeatedly accused Iran of meddlesome activities
in Iraq, including training Shiite militiamen
and shipping highly lethal weaponry into Iraq
for use in attacks by Shiite and Sunni Arab
militants against American troops.
U.S.-Iran talks
yield little progress
Los Angeles Times, May
29, 2007
BAGHDAD — There were no major breakthroughs
Monday as U.S. and Iranian diplomats held their
first formal direct talks in more than a quarter
of a century to discuss security in Iraq. But no
one had expected any.
At best, the envoys and their Iraqi hosts had
hoped the encounter would get two longtime foes
talking. And on that there was some slight
progress: Iran proposed forming a "trilateral
mechanism" to discuss ways to ease the conflict
in Iraq.AAA
But Crocker said he told the Iranians that "this
is about actions, not just principles," and that
they must stop arming, equipping and training
militias that are fighting U.S. and Iraqi
forces. Crocker said the Iranians rejected the
allegations and did not respond in detail to his
concerns.
USADI
Commentary reflects the viewpoints of the US Alliance
for Democratic Iran in respect to issues and events
which directly or indirectly impact the US policy toward
Iran |