by Dore Gold
In the past, Younesi served as the powerful intelligence minister under President Mohammad Khatami. Younesi said that Iran was once again an empire. Its capital was Iraq. He added: "There is no way to divide the territory of Iran and Iraq." He spoke about an eventual "union" between the two countries. In short, he was speaking about an Iranian takeover of Iraq.
General David Petraeus
is the best known top American officer from the Iraq War. There are only
a few in the U.S. who know more about internal developments in Iraq
than he does. After all, he was commander of the successful "surge" in
U.S. forces in Iraq in 2007-2008 that changed the tide of the war and
crushed the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida, which was the forerunner of the
Islamic State group.
Petraeus was
subsequently appointed head of the CIA by the Obama administration, a
position from which he had to resign in 2012 as a result of a personal
affair. Given his background, when he grants an interview to a major
newspaper like the Washington Post about what is currently happening in
Iraq and in the Middle East in general, his words can have enormous
influence on the centers of power from Cairo to Riyadh.
In Washington today,
and elsewhere in the NATO alliance, Western military strategy in the
Middle East has been focused on the threat of ISIS, which is using
brutal terrorist tactics, including televised beheadings of its
prisoners, to strike fear in the hearts of conventional armies. Their
collapse has led to the fragmentation of both Syria and Iraq. In
creating what it calls a new Islamic caliphate, ISIS has erased the
border between them that goes back to the First World War and the famous
1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Yet in his Washington
Post interview that was published on March 20, Petraeus defied the
conventional wisdom in Western capitals by declaring: "The foremost
threat to Iraq's long-term stability and the broader regional
equilibrium is not the Islamic State; rather, it is Shiite militias,
many backed by -- and some guided by -- Iran."
To those who have been
advocating a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran, he warned that
Iran is not an American ally in the Middle East, but rather a "part of
the problem," since the more it is seen as dominating the region, the
more Sunni radicalism is inflamed and prompted to spread. By stressing
that Iran was a greater threat to American interests than ISIS, Petraeus
was implicitly criticizing the policy of the administration he once
served.
Petraeus was keenly
aware of what was happening on the ground in Iraq. Right now dozens of
Shiite paramilitary organizations are active in the war against ISIS and
are coordinated by a secret branch of the Iraqi government, known as
Hashid Shaabi. Its head, Jamal Jaafar Muhammad, is believed by U.S.
officials to be tied to the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait in
1983, which was organized by Hezbollah mastermind Imad Mughniyeh.
These Shiite militias
have a strong anti-American background and many of them were involved in
attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq just ten years ago. Today, Jamal
Jaafar Muhammad is directly tied to Iran, serving under the infamous
General Qassam Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards. He has been called Suleimani's "right-hand man."
The connection between the Shiite militias and Suleimani make them into
not only an Iraqi force but an extension of Iranian power.
The most important
Shiite militia in the Hashid Shaabi network is the Badr Organization
which underwent training in Iran for years. Its leader, Hadi al-Amiri,
admitted last week to Reuters that his followers view Iranian Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the leader of the Islamic nation as a
whole -- and by implication, Iraq -- and not only as the head of the
Iranian state. Al-Amiri also said recently that the Badr Organization
had worked with Hezbollah, which shared its military lessons from
fighting Israel.
Today, in the battle
over the Sunni city of Tikrit between ISIS and the Iraqi government,
Baghdad has massed around 30,000 troops; according to American officials
who spoke with The New York Times, two-thirds of them are Shiite
militias that have been trained and equipped by Iran. In other words,
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are becoming larger and more powerful
than the Iraqi Army. This led Petraeus to conclude that Iran was
adopting the Hezbollah model for its surrogate forces in Iraq.
Washington has
consistently insisted on the need to preserve the territorial integrity
of the Iraqi state. That undoubtedly explains U.S. policy over the last
year of refraining from supplying too advanced weaponry to the Kurds.
However, the actions of the Iraqi Shiite militias in their war against
ISIS, and in particular their brutality against the Sunni Iraqi
population, will clearly accelerate the breakup of Iraq. Disputed areas
with mixed populations have already faced ethnic cleansing. In short,
the militias are having the exact opposite effect that they were
intended to bring about.
What is Iran is trying
to achieve in Iraq? This was recently revealed on March 8, by Ali
Younesi, an adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. In the past,
Younesi served as the powerful intelligence minister under President
Mohammad Khatami. Younesi said that Iran was once again an empire. Its
capital was Iraq. He added: "There is no way to divide the territory of
Iran and Iraq." He spoke about an eventual "union" between the two
countries. In short, he was speaking about an Iranian takeover of Iraq.
In fact, last December
over a million Iranian Shiites entered Iran for the Ashura festivals in
the Shiite holy cities. According to Iraqi sources they crossed the
international borders without any passports; Iraqi authorities do not
know how many remained or if they left.
It appears that the
recent changes in the Middle East have not only melted the borders
between Syria and Iraq, but also between Iraq and Iran. In the past,
Iraq served as a buffer state separating Iran from the rest of the Arab
world.
With the Iraqi buffer
removed, there will be a territorially contiguous line from Tehran to
Jordan's eastern border. It was noteworthy that General Suleimani was
quoted as saying that Iran could control events in Jordan, the same way
it operated in Iraq and Lebanon. Days later the Revolutionary Guards
denied that Suleimani made such a statement and issued their denial
through the Iranian Embassy in Amman.
Yet there were other
developments detailed in Al Jazeera on March 16 that show how Iran was
already at Jordan's doorstep. It was deploying its Revolutionary Guards
forces, as well as those of Hezbollah (and other Shiite militias from
Iraq and Afghanistan) in southern Syria, in an area adjacent to the
Jordanian border.
Iran is clearly exploiting its
nuclear talks with the West to establish its hegemonic position and
erect a new regional order from Yemen to Kurdistan. But above all it is
what is going on in Iraq today that is altering the shape of the Middle
East and consequently the kinds of challenges Israel is likely to face
in the years ahead.
Dore Gold
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=12109
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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