Towards US War With Iran.

A Jan. 16 communique by the Arab Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) has stated its "collective desire to prevent Iraq from becoming a battleground for regional and international powers". This communique was also signed by Jordan and Egypt, whose inclusion in the security calculus of the Persian Gulf rattled Iran and fuelled the growing rivalry between the Shi'ite power bloc and the Sunni Arabs led by Saudi Arabia. Simultaneously, the US has signalled a dramatic shift in its Iraq policy, aimed at deterring Iran's "hegemony", which puts Washington in league with the anti-Iran Sunni alliance precisely at a time when the US-Shi'ite alliance in Iraq is, while strained, still holding given the Shi'ite majority in the country.

Iranian analyst Kaveh Afrasiabi, in a Jan. 20 article in Asia Times Online, quoted a Tehran political analyst as saying: "Bush is now appeasing the Sunni bloc [in Iraq] and squeezing the Shi'ites and still wants to claim a continuity of US policy...when it is abundantly clear that discontinuity is gaining the upper hand". Another point conveyed by this analyst concerned the US arrest of several Iranians at a building in the Kurdish city of Erbil. US officials have accused those Iranians of being from the Qods Group of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and involved in subversive activities, a charge vigorously denied by Tehran.

Afrasiabi quoted the analyst as saying: "There is a shade of Bosnia here", referring to the US-Iran co-operation in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the early 1990s, which saved the beleaguered Bosnian Muslims from Serbian atrocities, notwithstanding a UN arms embargo. Then-US President Bill Clinton, urged by his top aides, authorised that co-operation, which involved "the Pentagon's own secret service" instead of the Central Intelligence Agency, according to 1997 congressional document. That report said the US was "very closely involved" in the Iranian arms pipeline to Bosnia through Turkey and Croatia, which involved small arms, mortars, anti-tank guns and surface-to-air missiles.

The history of US-Qods co-operation in Bosnia and subsequently in Afghanistan is instructive, given the avalanche of negative commentaries in the US media which portray a completely adversarial relationship between the US and Iran. In 1996, then Speaker of the US House of Representative Newt Gingrich set up a special committee to investigate US-Iran relations in Bosnia, which some US senators, including John Kerry, castigated as Clinton's version of the "Iran-Contra affair", with Kerry accusing Clinton of "turning a blind eye to Iranian shipments". As a result of such political pressures, the Clinton administration shifted its policy towards the Iranians in Bosnia: the IRGC's offices in Bosnia were ordered closed and, in one case reminiscent of the Erbil incident, US forces took over one of those liaison offices and temporarily apprehended several Iranians whom they accused of subversive activities.

Expelling the Iranians from Bosnia after they were no longer needed seemed like the right policy, and all the signs are that the US is inclined to repeat it in Iraq, irrespective of the stark differences relating to Iran's proximity to Iraq and the wealth of historical and religious ties. But, in addition to Bosnia, the US military and the Qods Group co-operated in Afghanistan.

The Bush administration has nullified the possibility of US-Iran co-operation in Iraq, as called for by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG), opting instead for the path of confrontation. There is now open talk of "crossing into Iran" and smashing the Iranian networks inside Iraq, as if those networks are constantly working at cross-purposes with the US mission. But what exactly is the US mission in Iraq?

Afrasiabi wrote: "The facade of a self-imposed mission to 'spread democracy' is wearing thinner by the hour, seeing how Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not bother to invoke the word 'democracy' once in her latest trip to Cairo and Riyadh, focusing instead on 'stability' and raising the specter that 'the Iranians are coming' - this from a specialist in Russia and the Cold War who is at home with Cold War posturing. Handicapped by her lack of knowledge of Middle Eastern history and politics, Rice must now ponder the quick drift toward military confrontation with Iran in light of the nuclear standoff and the seemingly irresistible Israeli pressure to act now before Iran reaches 'the point of no return'".

Afrasiabi continued: "We must also add: before the Bush administration becomes a 'lame duck' and is drawn by the president's own weakness into yet another foreign gambit by the weight of upcoming electoral politics... Various US pundits have openly opined that the first half of 2007 is the best time for military action against Iran, with that country internationally isolated, the Arab tide against Tehran at its all-time highest, and Iran's own house divided among competing factions unable to reach consensus on important foreign-policy priorities. Bulking up its military presence by dispatching a fresh aircraft-carrier task force to the Persian Gulf, as well as several nuclear-armed submarines, and sending Patriot missiles to the US-friendly states in the region, the Bush administration might actually gain in Iraq by subduing Iran militarily, ostensibly over the nuclear issue.

"The problem with this rationale, however, is that it disregards the likelihood of Iranian retaliation in Iraq, regional 'blowback', and the threats to the world economy posed by curtailed oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Concerning the last, the US has reportedly made contingency plans for the indefinite takeover of Iranian territory in Chah Bahar, which would deny Tehran its strategic leverage with Hormuz".

Afrasiabi warned: "A limited war with Iran is...likely to degenerate into a regional conflagration, substantially complicating the picture in Iraq (and Afghanistan as well), perhaps prompting the US to push for outright 'regime change' in Tehran, despite the lack of troops necessary for even a limited, contained war. That would mean expanding the Iraq war to Iran, with several intended and unintended consequences, one of which is potentially depriving Russia of the Iranian buffer it now enjoys vis-a-vis the power of the US military machine.

"It comes as no surprise, then, that in the midst of US-Russian common cause at the UN Security Council against Iran, Moscow has proceeded with the delivery of an air-defense system to Iran and is hinting at the sale of an even more advanced system in the future. Russia's national-security interests would be badly bruised by a US-Iran military showdown that would bring the intrusive Western superpower closer to Russia's (insecure) southern borders.

"Nor would China benefit geostrategically from such an outcome, in light of that country's burgeoning energy relations with Iran today, further solidified by a new US$3.6 billion Tehran-Beijing agreement for liquefied natural gas. In signing this LNG deal, the Chinese government had to ignore a blunt US warning not to proceed, with the foreign minister telling the US 'not to meddle' in China's relations with Iran. Clearly, China could not have the same expectations about the nature of Iranian regime change after an unequal bout between the recalcitrant Iranians and the US.

"In a word, the long-term geopolitical ramifications for both China and Russia are too serious to ignore by their policymakers. Moscow and Beijing have joined the bandwagon over US-led efforts to impose sanctions on Iran, overlooking their own previously stated insight that such sanctions would be a 'prelude to war'.

"Indeed, how little time Washington has lost in following up Security Council Resolution 1737 with ratcheted-up military threats against Iran. Looking far ahead, this, in turn, raises another vexing question: Is the US-Iran rivalry the outer ring of a broader, new Cold War between the US and the countervailing powers of China and Russia?"