At play in Iran's backyard
IRAQI PRIME Minister Nouri al-Maliki's two-day state visit to Iran last week was an occasion for sealing deals on oil extraction and commerce in petroleum products. It also marked Maliki's return to the country where he spent part of his exile during the reign of Saddam Hussein. But above all, Maliki's trip to Iran underlined the enormity of the geopolitical transformation that President Bush wrought when, by toppling Saddam, he tumbled Iraq into Iran's sphere of influence.
Exactly how relations between the new Iraqi state and Iran may develop is yet to be determined. But Maliki's visit illustrates some of the complexities weighing upon those relations. A crucial difficulty of Maliki's mission was suggested by a statement from his government's spokesman in Baghdad. While Maliki and his Iranian hosts in Tehran were pledging friendship and cooperation , the Iraqi government spokesman was saying that his prime minister was emphasizing that ``we want the best of relations with Iran and we don't want interference in our internal affairs."
It is hardly a secret that Iran has been interfering in Iraq. While Maliki was meeting Iran's belligerent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, US military authorities were complaining about Iranian support for Shi'ite militias in Iraq that are sending death squads after Sunni Muslims in Iraq and attacking US forces.
Iran's ultimate aims in Iraq are unclear, because Iran's actions appear far from consistent. At present, there is Iranian support for Maliki's government and his Shi'ite Dawa party. B ut there is also support for his primary Shi'ite rival, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of a party whose militia, the Badr Brigade, was trained in exile by Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Hakim has been pushing for the formation of a highly autonomous Shi'ite region in nine southern provinces of Iraq. This project alarms not only the Sunni Arab factions in Iraq who fear being deprived of a share in Iraq's oil resources. The prospect of a fragmented Iraq is also opposed vehemently by Moqtada al-Sadr, a demagogic Shi'ite cleric whose Mahdi Army has fought US troops and who also receives support from Iran.
The Iranian regime may be playing an extremely subtle hand in Iraq -- or else disparate elements of that regime may be operating on separate tracks, even at cross purposes. What does seem clear is that even while Iran's supreme leader was telling Maliki that Iraq's stability requires the departure of US troops, the specter of Iranian dominance appears to be one more reason why Bush is not extricating America from Iraq .
