Al-Maliki encourages Iran's growing presence in Iraq
Chicago Tribune, August 19, 2007
By Alireza Jafarzadeh
On the surface, Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki's visit to Tehran on Aug. 8 to
talk with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was another
effort to enlist Iran's help in bringing security to
Iraq. The real purpose, however, was quite different.
Al-Maliki's trip helped smooth the way for the Iranian
clerics to install a sister Islamic republic in Iraq.
Al-Maliki met with the supreme leader Ali Khamenei,
President Ahmadinejad and other senior officials. Maliki
told Ahmadinejad that Tehran is playing a "positive and
constructive" role in improving security in Iraq.
Tehran's leaders were quick to praise al-Maliki. Iranian
television broadcast a statement of support for al-Maliki
from Khamenei while calling for the American forces to
leave Iraq. "We should support the elected government of
Iraq, and all of the factions and ethnic groups should
cooperate with the elected government," Khamenei said.
While al-Maliki builds relations with the Iranian
regime, the Iraqi people as well as his own government
reject him. Out of his 37 cabinet members, 17 have
resigned or stopped attending official meetings, which
is virtually grinding the executive branch to a halt.
Al-Maliki's agenda is clearly at odds with that of the
rest of Iraq. Under his watch, Iran has dramatically
increased its deadly intervention in Iraq. On Aug. 6,
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno reported that 75 percent of the
attacks that kill or injure Americans in Iraq are
committed by Shiite militias that are trained, armed and
funded by Iran. These attacks include Iran-manufactured
explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, which are the
number one killer of American forces in Iraq. Odierno
stated that the 99 attacks utilizing EFPs in July were
an "all-time high." So, what has al-Maliki done in
response to the very high price that American service
men and women are paying for his country and the region?
Instead of fulfilling his duty to disband and disarm the
militias, al-Maliki has further empowered the militias
who are major contributors to sectarian violence and
killings in Iraq. Instead of building unity among all
factions in Iraq, al-Maliki has used the opportunity to
strengthen his own pro-Tehran faction within the
government. Instead of attempting to secure the country
by cutting off the suppliers of weapons and explosives,
he has signaled to Tehran that the violence perpetrated
by its eastern neighbor is actually improving the
security in Iraq.
Days after U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker presented a long
list of terrorist activities by Tehran as the main
source of instability in Iraq, al-Maliki told his
Iranian counterparts that Iran's role is positive. A day
before his trip to Tehran, in an interview with al-Iraqia
television, al-Maliki called for the expulsion of Iran's
main opposition movement, which has a base headquarters
in Ashraf City, Iraq. Iran's leaders consider this
anti-regime group, the Mujahedeen Khalq, its most
formidable threat, and a major obstacle to Tehran's
complete domination of Iraq. "The presence of the [Mujahedeen
Khalq] in Iraq is detrimental to Iran's security," he
stated. Al-Maliki is apparently more concerned about the
security of the Iranian regime than the security of
Iraq.
Iran is throwing everything it has behind the radical
Shiites in Iraq in order to escalate the fighting and
convince the U.S. Congress to retreat, leaving Iraq wide
open for the mullahs in Tehran to finish their job.
Instead of negotiating with the Iranian regime, or
relying on Iraqi elements with close ties with Tehran to
mediate a secure Iraq, the United States should
decisively dismantle Tehran's terror structure in Iraq,
empower the more moderate and secular voices of Iraq --
Shiites, Sunni and Kurds -- and put Tehran on the
defensive by reaching out to the democratic opposition
in Iran that is already engaged in bringing about
democratic change in Iran.
President Bush said that "if the signal [from al-Maliki]
is that Iran is constructive, I will have a
heart-to-heart with my friend the prime minister,
because I don't believe they [the Iranian leaders] are
constructive." Mr. President, the heart-to-heart is long
overdue.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is the author of "The Iran
Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear
Crisis."