Proxy war in the North
The LA Times reports that Iran is complaining about proxy warfare being waged against it. "A series of conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran's borders may be impelling Tehran to back its own allies in Iraq in what it regards as a proxy war with the U.S., according to security experts and officials in the U.S., Iran and Iraq." In this version of events Iran is only supporting Shi'ite militias because America is supporting Kurds and Baluchis against it.
Dozens of Iranian officials, members of the security forces and insurgents belonging to Kurdish, Arab Iranian and Baluch groups have died in the fighting in recent years. It now appears to be heating up once again after an unusually cold and snowy winter.
In recent weeks, Iranians have begun the now-routine bombardment of suspected rebel Iranian Kurd positions in northern Iraq, and guerrillas have claimed incursions into northwestern Iran. ...
"It will give more encouragement to Iran's hard-liners to step up their own efforts to assist anti-American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst now at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
That line of argument is remarkably consistent. Any fightback is always "America's fault" and likely to make things worse. The best policy is to roll over and die. There's no shortage of people who actually believe this is true.
The Belmont Club is supported largely by donations from its readers.
posted by wretchardthecat at 4/15/2008 02:36:00 AM
15 Comments:
Be it in the north or south the proxy war,which I mentioned last night in the post on the Special Groups and JAMS in Iraq, is being aided for the most part now by the Russians.
In league with the Iranians they have a large stake in the outcome of a US presents remaining in Iraq. This is now also fueled by the successful use by the Iraqi government of Coalition member Georgia of which the old Soviets like Vlad Putin despise.
Given the long border Iran has with Russia it is highly likely that supplies are finding their way through the various mountains surrounding the two countries or simply being flow into Syria and transshipped into Iran. I am confident Echelon has uncovered this connection but sources and methods protection is more important than a publicity victory.
A third point is the highly suspect role of the Russian Spetznau in removing WMD's from Iraq prior to the US invasion. This would highlight a cooperative attitude Russia has with Iraqi JAMS ans Special Forces. There are now hundreds of captured CD's and documents to confirm this as well as contemporaneous satellite photos.
Putin's Russia, and it is still Putin's Russia wants to become a world player again and has been poking the US for a time now. Putin isn't ready for what's coming to Natanz and Iran.
By late 2009 Iraq will be secure but it still will not be safe.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Heh.
We make a deal with the Turks to carve out N Iran as an independent Kurdish state that is part of Turkey!!!
Wretchard wrote:
"Any fightback is always 'America's fault' and likely to make things worse. The best policy is to roll over and die. There's no shortage of people who actually believe this is true."
Yes, and with an emphasis on "believe," I suspect. The LAT world view is pure in its desire for world peace. With enough exercise of reason and soft power, the various currents of discord in the world will emerge into a harmony of peoples. I can hear, even now, Kiri TeKanawa singing "A World in Harmony," the anthem of the EU. Great song. Can't we all just get along?
The LAT world view is Pelagian. The counterview is Augustinian. A current source of trouble is Koranic. Paper, rock, scissors/scimitar.
In the background, let us roll in the narrator of the "Epilog," Crime and Punishment:
"He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible."
I feel very sorry for the Persian people who are going to have to reap what the theocracy is sowing. It's not the fault of the US. Unless the microbe debilitates us first, we have no choice but to attack the external mutations of the disease.
The LA Times reports that Iran is complaining about proxy warfare being waged against it. "A series of conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran's borders may be impelling Tehran to back its own allies in Iraq in what it regards as a proxy war with the U.S., according to security experts and officials in the U.S., Iran and Iraq." In this version of events Iran is only supporting Shi'ite militias because America is supporting Kurds and Baluchis against it.
- Wretchard
I think it's extremely difficult for people to grasp that Teheran's "own allies in Iraq" include, above all, the Iraqi government, with which it has a special relationship.
This is, I believe, what coyotl was driving at in a previous thread, though "puppet" is not the correct term for it. Partner is more apt.
Sadr is a political competitor to Badr and Dawa; neither he nor JAM are central to Iranian influence in Baghdad. The current Teheran-friendly government is.
Let me put it another way: The Iranian-backed Special Groups in Iraq are like Saudi-backed "special
groups" in Pakistan. The PakMil occasionally gets around to targeting these, often at our behest. But the two countries have a strategic relationship which is not imperiled by the existence of those entities.
"It will give more encouragement to Iran's hard-liners to step up their own efforts to assist anti-American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst now at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
..
What a piece of shit this analcyst is.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Trish,
What I don't understand about the "partnership" theory re. Badr/Dawa and the Iran is how it serves those who most stand to gain in a free Iraq, i.e. the Iraqi politicians? The Iraqi regime is not Hezbollah or some other kind of entity that stands to benefit from Iranian-sponsored chaos. If we "follow the money," how does anyone connected with an elected regime in Baghdad benefit from partnership with an economically weak Iran? I have a hard time buying a theory that religious brotherhood is going to trump cash considerations.
Habu: A third point is the highly suspect role of the Russian Spetznau in removing WMD's from Iraq prior to the US invasion...There are now hundreds of captured CD's and documents to confirm this as well as contemporaneous satellite photos.
That's piss-poor strategery. When you're about to face a home-invasion robbery you don't call your neighbor and have him take all your ammo out the back porch. And how come no one in the press has seen these CD's and documents? It must be a conspiracy to make Bush look bad.
mark,
Not all Iraqis agree that it IS a beneficial partnership. But though I don't mean to be rude by answering a question with a question: How do we benefit from a partnership with Mexico?
"A third point is the highly suspect role of the Russian Spetznau in removing WMD's from Iraq prior to the US invasion. This would highlight a cooperative attitude Russia has with Iraqi JAMS ans Special Forces. There are now hundreds of captured CD's and documents to confirm this as well as contemporaneous satellite photos."
Where?
On a previous post, I asked if anyone knew of Ion Mihai Pacepa, and if he was credible - no one responded back.
But this article was originally written in the washington times in Oct, 2003. Ion Mihai Pacepa headed Romania's secret service and was the highest ranking defector to the US. In this article, as well as others that he has written, he argues, convincingly, that the russians helped Saddam get rid of his WMD's:
"As a former Romanian spy chief who used to take orders from the Soviet KGB, it is perfectly obvious to me that Russia is behind the evanescence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. After all, Russia helped Saddam get his hands on them in the first place. The Soviet Union and all its bloc states always had a standard operating procedure for deep sixing weapons of mass destruction — in Romanian it was codenamed "Sarindar, meaning "emergency exit." I implemented it in Libya. It was for ridding Third World despots of all trace of their chemical weapons if the Western imperialists ever got near them. We wanted to make sure they would never be traced back to us, and we also wanted to frustrate the West by not giving them anything they could make propaganda with."
He later writes:
"Iraq, in my view, had its own "Sarindar" plan in effect direct from Moscow. It certainly had one in the past. Nicolae Ceausescu told me so, and he heard it from Leonid Brezhnev. KGB chairman Yury Andropov, and later, Gen. Yevgeny Primakov, told me so, too. In the late 1970s, Gen. Primakov ran Saddam's weapons programs. After that, as you may recall, he was promoted to head of the Soviet foreign intelligence service in 1990, to Russia's minister of foreign affairs in 1996, and in 1998, to prime minister. What you may not know is that Primakov hates Israel and has always championed Arab radicalism. He was a personal friend of Saddam's and has repeatedly visited Baghdad after 1991, quietly helping Saddam play his game of hide-and-seek.
The Soviet bloc not only sold Saddam its WMDs, but it showed them how to make them "disappear." Russia is still at it. Primakov was in Baghdad from December until a couple of days before the war, along with a team of Russian military experts led by two of Russia's topnotch "retired"generals: Vladislav Achalov, a former deputy defense minister, and Igor Maltsev, a former air defense chief of staff. They were all there receiving honorary medals from the Iraqi defense minister. They clearly were not there to give Saddam military advice for the upcoming war—Saddam's Katyusha launchers were of World War II vintage, and his T-72 tanks, BMP-1 fighting vehicles and MiG fighter planes were all obviously useless against America. "I did not fly to Baghdad to drink coffee," was what Gen. Achalov told the media afterward. They were there orchestrating Iraq's "Sarindar" plan."
The article is reproduced on Frontpage's website at:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=31404B53-B0E7-49C0-A9BE-E5F8B53CD2A7
Read the whole thing. He sounds pretty convincing. But, I never hear anyone referring to his position.
Do you think he and his points are legitimate?
We have been destroying a lot of arms caches in Iraq, some of which have been paid for by Iran. It seems to me that the least we could do is return this merchandise. Since we don't deal directly with Iran, perhaps we could give it to Pijak for safekeeping, but only if they promise to return it to the original owners.
Yes. I've heard the same thing before from a variety of sources, all of whom make a decent case, but it was the reference to CD's and such perked my interest here.
Post a Comment
<< Home