(cross posted from my blog)
One of the most absurd accusations against Iran has been that Tehran is secretly arming (and even possibly training) the anti-Imperial resistance forces in Iraq. Why is this an utterly absurd accusation? Because as Robert Dreyfuss explains it in his many excellent articles (see here, here and here) the USA and Iran are supporting the same side in this war: the Maliki government. They are also the only ones to support it, by the way. Even the Shias of Muqtada al-Sadr Mehdi Army are opposing a government which everybody in Iraq sees as a strange, but no less real, US/Iranian “Vichy” regime.
This is not the first time that the Empire is fighting on the side of so-called “Muslim fundamentalists”. For example, while it is well known that Al-Qaeda was largely a US and Saudi creation during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Brendan O’Neill has documented the fact that Al-Qaeda as a fighting force was really brought together in Bosnia, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Likewise, the Al-Qaeda “franchise” in Lebanon, Fatah al-Islam, is also currently supported by the Empire (see here, here, here and here). However, what is interesting in the case of Iraq, is that the US appears to be supporting the pro-Iranian Shias against all the other parties to the conflict (the Redirection of the US policy in the Middle-East notwithstanding). The fact is that Iran and the USA appear to be objective allies in the war in Iraq. The question is: why is that?
There are three main reasons for this seemingly outlandish arrangement:
- The Neocons did have hopes that the US force would be greeted as liberators by the oppressed Shia of Iraq. To a certain extend, they were, indeed, cautiously welcomed by the Shias, not out of a deep sence of love for anything American, but simply because the US occupation removed Saddam and his Baathist thugs from power.
- The Neocons did have to put up at least a facade of democracy in Iraq and denying the reigns of power to the Shia majority would have been politically too dangerous.
- Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani did not request, but demand free direct elections from the US occupation regime which had to cave in to this demand or face an immediate and overwhelming insurrection by the Shia majority.
So in the case of Iraq, the Empire really had no other option that to put the Shias in power. The most powerful, best organized, best armed and best trained Shia clearly were those who had spend many years in exile in Iran being trained and financed by the Iranians to overthrow Saddam and take power. The Empire did try to avoid this situation, but was typically helpless and the most pro-Iranian forces have since been in control in Iraq.
While all other parties to the war deeply resent the “Persians” as these pro-Iranian Iraqi Arabs are often called, the Sunni Resistance (including the Al-Qaeda Wahabis) in particular hates them and regularly fights against them (there are also tensions between the pro-Iranian Shias and the nationalists of Al-Sadr, but these have not been nearly as bloody as the conflict with the Sunnis and the more secular former Baathists). In fact, many believe that a US withdrawal would precipitate a loss of power by the current regime. It is thus quite clear that the Iranians need the US occupation forces to remain in Iraq and fight against the enemies of the pro-Iranian regime in power.
All that talk about Iranian IED and Hezbollah fighters in Basra are, at best, unsubstantiated exaggerations and, most probably, complete fabrications of the US propaganda machine to find a Neocon-compatible scapegoat and blame Iran for everything which went wrong in the “new Middle-East” dreamed-up by the Neocons, from the defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq to the crisis in Gaza.
Frankly, I did not expect anything better from the Neocon’s propaganda. What is amazing and truly frightening, is that the Imperial Senate has unanimously passed a resolution blaming Iran for the death of US soldiers in Iraq. Yes, unanimously.
After passing a resolution supporting the Israeli war crimes in Lebanon, the House also adopted a Neocon-sponsored resolution demanding that Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad be condemned by the UN for “inciting genocide” . Only Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich voted against this text. Dennis Kucinich was even blocked from putting a correct translation of the words of Ahmadinejad in the official record even though the translation used in the media was based on a mistranslation. And now it is the Imperial Senate which adopts a self-evidently idiotic resolution unanimously, blaming Iran for US casualties in Iraq.
There is no doubt in my mind that all these resolutions serve only one single purpose: to establish a legal basis (at least in terms of US law) for a “defensive” war against Iran. The Empire fully understands that the UN will never allow an aggression against Iran and that nobody, besides Israel, wants another extremely dangerous war in the Middle-East. Having lost any hope for making such a war legal in terms of international law, the Neocons are now falling back on the next best option: attempting make such a war legal in terms of US law (thus making it impossible in the future for US lawmakers to oppose it).
There is no doubt that the Empire is suffering from a severe case of “political multiple personality disorder”: American soldiers are dying every day to protect Iran’s allies in Iraq, while other American soldiers are preparing to initiate an aggression against the patron of the very regime which American soldiers are protecting with their lives today.
If any good at all can come from such absurd and needless tragedies, it hopefully will be that it will finally open the currently firmly shut eyes of the American public to the reality that the Neocons regime in Washington does not care in the least about the USA or about Americans. This is not even an issue of “dual loyalty” any more: this is clearly high treason at the service of a foreign power: Israel.
How many more Americans will have to needlessly die before this Neocon occupation government and the Soviet-style Nomenklatura which supports it will be given the boot and before its leaders sent to rot in jail for treason?
