[Mb-civic] FW: The U.S.-Iranian Confrontation

[villasudjuan]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Farhad Sepahbody" <monsoon at esedona.net>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 08:49:19 -0700
To: <villasudjuan at free.fr>
Subject: The U.S.-Iranian Confrontation

THE GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT

Foggy Wars: The U.S.-Iranian Confrontation

By George Friedman

During World War II, there were massive armored battles that became less
comprehensible with increasing amounts of information made available.
The swirling battles made strategic sense, but the more you knew, the
more you lost your sense of the main strategic threat. The notion "fog
of war" has many meanings, but this is certainly one of the more
important ones: The details themselves create an impenetrable fog, and
it is necessary to discard details to understand the whole. This is the
sense we get in trying to understand what is happening between the
United States and Iran, and within Iraq -- between the Iraqi government,
Iraqi Shia and the United States. Events have swirled, and the more
deeply you dig into the details the less sense it all makes.

On a strategic level, when we step away from the details, the meaning of
the events can be readily understood. Since April, the United States has
executed a strategic shift away from the Iraqi Shia and a developed,
more complex political posture, including relations with a variety of
Sunni groups. It has been our view that the Iranian government, having
crafted a decade-long strategy designed to allow it to dominate Iraq
after the fall of Saddam Hussein, would react vigorously to a massive
geopolitical reversal. Iran would not simply accept its marginalization
in Iraq.

Therefore, it was our expectation that two things would happen. First,
there would be an intensifying crisis between the United States and Iran
on the state-to-state level, including increasing military tension.
Second, there would be increased tension within Iraq's Shiite community
and between the Iraqi Shia and the United States. All of this appears to
be happening. However, the details of this process -- like a World War
II armored battle -- swirl before our eyes, obscuring the wider meaning.

Certainly, the evolution of events over the past few days has been
difficult to fully understand. Consider the following list of events,
taken in absolutely no particular order:

* U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Aug. 8 on a
Sunday TV talk show the United States would not rule out using covert
force to eliminate Iranian nuclear facilities. "We will use many means
to try to disrupt these programs. The president will look at all the
tools that are available to us," she said.

* Iraqi authorities on Aug. 8 issued an arrest warrant for former Iraqi
Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi, stemming from allegations that
he had been counterfeiting old Iraqi dinars. Chalabi's nephew, Salem
Chalabi -- head of a tribunal that will try Saddam Hussein on war crimes
-- also was the subject of an arrest warrant; he is suspected of
murdering Haitehm Faidel -- director-general of Iraq's Finance Ministry
-- in June.

* An Iranian diplomat was kidnapped by the "Islamic Army in Iraq," (IAI)
a Sunni group that recently has carried out other kidnappings. The
diplomat, Fereidoun Jahani, was identified as an Iranian Embassy
official working in the Shiite holy city of Karbala. The IAI said he was
kidnapped because "he had been involved in inciting sectarian strife and
operating outside the sphere of diplomacy," Al Jazeera reported.
According to Al Jazeera, "The group also warned Iran against flagrant
interference in the affairs of Iraq."

* Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's senior Shiite cleric, left Iraq
on Aug. 6, accompanied by three aides, for London, where he is seeking
treatment for a cardiac condition. According to Sheikh Hamed Khafaf,
al-Sistani's spokesman in Beirut, the ayatollah "needs special
treatment, but he is not in a deteriorated state." Al-Sistani was well
enough to meet with Nabih Berri, head of the Shiite Amal Party, during a
stopover in Beirut.

* Reports surfaced in Western media that Washington has learned that
North Korea is developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering
nuclear weapons, and that these weapons are to be tested in Iran. This
information clearly emanated from the Bush administration, which used
the report to increase the sense of crisis over Iran.

* Tehran issued a fresh warning to Iranian nationals Aug. 8 against
making pilgrimages to Shiite Muslim shrines in Iraq, and appealed to
Iraq to stop issuing visas to pilgrims. Iran's deputy interior minister
in charge of security affairs, Ali Asghar Ahmadi, told state television
the call was made "due to the adverse domestic situation in Iraq."

* Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi visited the Shiite city of An
Najaf on Aug. 8 and urged local militants to lay down their arms. Allawi
said he did not believe those involved in the fighting were being led by
radical Muqtada al-Sadr, but rather that they are "common criminals."
The point was to give al-Sadr room to maneuver and not lock him into a
civil war.

* The Interim Iraqi Government reinstated the death penalty for various
crimes, such as murder, kidnapping and drug-dealing.

Normally, any one of these events or statements would dominate the news.
Right now, these things are coming so fast they appear as a blur, and
the whole is submerged beneath the terrorism alerts and the U.S.
presidential campaign. Nevertheless, these events are of extreme
significance -- not only in themselves, but because they represent a
major redefinition of the broader war and an intense and swirling
battle, 2004-style.

If we attempt to make sense of this, the following seems to be
happening. The United States' decision to shift alliances in April has
split Iraq's Shiite community. Al-Sistani, who is ideologically opposed
to direct rule by clerics, sought to find a basis for accommodation with
the United States and the new Iraqi government, placing him at odds with
the Iranians. Al-Sadr, whose rising in April triggered the U.S.
reappraisal, first became passive and then, under Iranian prodding,
became increasingly belligerent -- not only holding his ground
militarily, but also threatening al-Sistani.

Since April, the United States has maintained a relatively "hands-off"
policy toward al-Sadr. Al-Sistani originally hoped the United States
would crush al-Sadr, solving his own problem and allowing him to condemn
Washington for doing it -- but the United States wouldn't play that
game. Washington wanted a deeper commitment from al-Sistani to the
United States and the new government in Baghdad before taking any
serious action against al-Sadr. It would appear the United States
finally got what it wanted from al-Sistani in the past couple of weeks:
Publicly, he took certain actions that Washington favored, including
condemning the bombing of Christian churches in Iraq. As a result -- and
fearing that Iranian support was strengthening al-Sadr beyond what was
acceptable to Washington -- the United States launched a massive
offensive against al-Sadr's forces in An Najaf, claiming to kill
hundreds of his troops.

Al-Sistani might indeed have a heart condition, but nothing we have seen
indicates he needed an immediate trip to London for any but political
reasons. First, as the situation in the Shiite community intensified and
Iranian anger against al-Sistani flared, the United States was not
certain it could provide security for the ayatollah in Iraq. The last
thing the United States wanted was a dead ayatollah just after he had
reached an understanding with Washington. Beyond security
considerations, al-Sistani needed to be out of play while the United
States moved against al-Sadr. By having a heart problem, al-Sistani
could not be faulted if he was unable to effectively block the Americans
as they moved in after al-Sadr. Going to London provided him with a
degree -- imperfect though it might be -- of plausible deniability.

At the same time, the United States was orchestrating a two-tier policy.
On one level, it raised the pressure on pro-Iranian Shia by having the
Iraqi government issue arrest warrants for Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi, who
was the front-runner to be the U.S.-anointed leader of Iraq just a year
ago, had extremely close relations with Iran -- even assuming he wasn't
simply an agent for Tehran. He had been regarded by the Iranians, even
more than by the Americans, as their tool in Iraq. With Baghdad issuing
arrest warrants, the Iranian government was to understand that the
Chalabi connection was all washed up -- breaking a key communication
link between Washington and Tehran.

On another level, the United States tried again to split the Iraqi Shia.
Al-Sadr has, on occasion, shown signs of wavering. Allawi's visit to An
Najaf involved both a threat and an olive-branch. By distinguishing the
"criminal" fighters from al-Sadr's forces, Allawi was telling al-Sadr
two things: First, that the wind from Baghdad and Washington was blowing
much harder than the breeze from Tehran, which is why al-Sadr just lost
a lot of troops in An Najaf; and second, that there still is time for
al-Sadr to switch sides with no hard feelings -- a point driven home by
the reintroduction of capital punishment in Iraq. If al-Sadr were to
shift position, the Iranian position in Iraq would truly collapse.

Driving home this point, an Iranian diplomat was kidnapped. The group
that claims to have carried out the abduction is a mortal enemy of the
United States. At the same time, it is no friend of Iran's. There was no
reason for the IAI not to have kidnapped an Iranian diplomat, but the
timing -- from the U.S. viewpoint -- was simply splendid. With al-Sadr
on the razor's edge, the signal has been sent to Tehran that its agents
in Iraq are known and no longer invulnerable. How this stroke of luck
originated is unclear to us, but is the exact message the United States
would have wanted to communicate if it could have. The Iranians
understand the deteriorating situation and have therefore ordered
pilgrims to stay out of Iraq, since it is dangerous for them there.
Whether this will include a withdrawal of other Iranian personnel
remains to be seen and probably depends on decisions al-Sadr is going to
make.

While this was going on, the United States increased the pressure for
Iran directly. Rice's statement about the possibility of covert
operations in Iran was designed to create an increased sense of
embattlement for Iran without breaking new ground. It always has been
understood that the United States would take action to prevent an
Iranian nuclear device from being deployed; the subtle difference here
is that the United States is now prepared to take covert actions to
delay the program at any stage. In other words, Washington is telling
Tehran the United States could commence covert operations at any time.

On a broader level, we would be very interested to have heard what
al-Sistani told Berri. Berri, a significant Shiite leader, is Parliament
speaker in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is a powerful force. Iran has said
it is training suicide bombers, but Hezbollah has had a history of
effective suicide and other operations against both Israel and the
United States. As Parliament speaker, Berri has grown contented over the
years and might not be eager for another round of Hezbollah operations
that would upset his life. If our read on al-Sistani's position is
correct, the meeting might not have been just a courtesy call, but also
an attempt to see if there was the possibility of a Shiite alternative
to Iranian policies.

If we step back from the crazy-quilt of activities, what we seem to have
is an attempt by the United States to block Iran on a number of levels.
>From the streets of An Najaf to the Beirut airport to "Meet the Press,"
the United States has launched a full-court press against Iran. The goal
is to force Tehran to accept the reality of a U.S.-dominated Iraq and
abandon its own plans to redefine the situation next door. The key right
now is how al-Sadr reads the situation: If he feels the Iranians can
bail him out, he might fight on -- the dream of governing Iraq very much
on his mind. On the other hand, if he feels the Iranians are hanging him
out to dry, he might throw in his cards. If that were to happen, the
entire Iranian position could unravel.

That is a huge "if." If we back away from the details, we see this: The
United States has split the Sunni and Shiite communities. The tension
between the anti-American fragments of both communities is enormous, and
Washington is manipulating them. Iran has been unable to recoup as yet,
but has substantial resources and huge stakes in the game. On the other
hand, time is not on Iran's side. The United States is pressing it
backward day after day. That makes Iran more, not less, dangerous --
unless it decides this round is lost and it needs to wait for the next
round. But Tehran does have one huge card to play: alliance with al
Qaeda. There are tremendous hurdles to overcome for that to happen --
ideology not the least among those. But it is the card Tehran holds, and
it is one that will worry Washington the most.

http://www.stratfor.com <http://www.stratfor.com/>

 


------ End of Forwarded Message

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20040823/97e5a2f8/attachment.htm