December 2, 2008
Region's tensions on rise
By vowing to "interrupt" the flow of weapons and recruits for the Iraqi insurgency, President George W. Bush intensified his confrontation with Iran and Syria -- a move that is likely to create more instability in Iraq.
As Bush delivered his speech Wednesday night outlining his new plan for Iraq, U.S. forces raided an Iranian government office in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil and arrested six people. The raid drew condemnation from Tehran and from the regional Iraqi Kurdish government, a U.S. ally that controls Irbil.
For several weeks, Bush had made clear that he was not going to follow the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to reach out to Iran and Syria for help. Instead, Bush is actively challenging Iraq's two neighbors. "We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria," he said in the speech. "And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
This new confrontation will create more problems for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has strong ties to Iran and needs renegade Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr -- another Iranian ally -- for his political survival.
Al-Maliki has so far evaded a central U.S. demand: to rein in Shia militias that are using Iraqi security forces to carry out sectarian killings. For months, the Bush administration has tried to push the Shia-dominated government into talks with Sunni political and tribal leaders close to the insurgents. Washington has also pressed Sunni-led regimes, such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia, to mediate between Iraqi factions.
Few Iraqi leaders voiced support Thursday for Bush's plan to boost U.S. forces by 21,500 troops and begin a new security offensive in Baghdad. Until a few weeks ago, al-Maliki was opposed to a "surge" in U.S. troops. He is now behind the plan and has pledged to no longer protect al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and other Shia militias.
Even Kurdish politicians who normally go out of their way to support Washington dismissed the plan. "Without a political solution, sending more troops and money will not help," said Mahmoud Othman, a leading Kurdish member of Iraq's parliament. "This plan is not going to work."
Othman also warned it was a mistake to pressure al-Maliki to send Kurdish forces to fight Shia militia in Baghdad. "They don't know the Shia areas and they don't know the people," he said. "This could also create new Arab-Kurdish tensions."
Sunnis within and outside Iraq are angry about al-Maliki's reluctance to confront Shia militias. They view him as serving only the interests of Iraq's Shia majority -- or worse, that of Shia-led Iran. That view was reinforced when al-Maliki let Saddam Hussein be executed at the start of Islam's holiest period.
"Al-Maliki's government is part of the problem, not the solution," Arib Rentawi, director of Al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Jordan, said on Al-Jazeera satellite TV.
Iraqi Shia politicians, including al-Maliki, believe the U.S. military is too focused on Shia militias -- especially with repeated raids against the Mahdi Army. Shia leaders argue that U.S. forces should instead focus on defeating the Sunni-led insurgency. But as attacks on Shia civilians increase, as do retaliatory killings by Shia militias, groups like al-Sadr's become more entrenched. The cleric commands one of the largest blocs in the Iraqi parliament, and he was instrumental in backing al-Maliki for the prime minister post.
The raid on the Iranian office in Irbil highlighted al-Maliki's tenuous position as Washington intensifies its targeting of Iranians and Syrians in Iraq. Iranian officials said the raid violated international law because it was "against a diplomatic mission," but U.S. officials said the office was not an official consulate and did not have immunity.
Last month, U.S. troops in Baghdad arrested two Iranians they accused of smuggling weapons and planning attacks. Al-Maliki worked quickly to secure the men's release and ordered them to leave Iraq. While several al-Maliki aides criticized those arrests publicly, they have said little about the latest raid.
Instead, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh lamented the deteriorating relations between Washington and Iraq's neighbors. "Sometimes we pay the price for the tension in relations between Iran and the United States and Syria," he told reporters in Baghdad. "Therefore it is in our interest that these relations improve, but not at the expense of Iraq."
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