US, Iran will cooperate on Iraq security
Agreement marks major shift in policy
WASHINGTON -- During a tense seven-hour meeting in Baghdad yesterday, the United States accepted an Iranian proposal to set up a joint committee on security in Iraq, marking a major shift in US policy toward engagement with the Iranian regime.
The committee will provide the first direct, sustained forum for dialogue between the United States and Iran in 27 years. The group, which will include Iraqi officials, is expected to focus on fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, securing Iraq's borders, and controlling violent militias, according to Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq.
Iran made the proposal for such a committee in May at a landmark meeting between Crocker and Iran's ambassador to Iraq. Senior officials in Washington debated the offer for months, with some US officials arguing against even entering a second round of talks. Crocker said publicly at the time that the United States would accept Tehran's proposal only if it saw a positive change in Iran's behavior in Iraq.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday in Washington, Crocker acknowledged that attacks by Iranian-sponsored militia groups had increased, not declined, but he said that US officials opted to join the trilateral working group on security to test Iran's intentions.
"We'll see what they do," Crocker said. "Over the last two months, we have seen, if anything, an increase. They maintain that they are serious about assisting Iraq to improve security. The opportunity is in front of them."
Iraq's Shi'ite-dominated government has close ties to neighboring Iran and has appealed to Washington and Tehran, its two biggest patrons, to curb escalating tensions.
Crocker said the size and composition of the committee, as well as the frequency with which it will meet, would be determined in the coming days.
Some specialists hailed the agreement as a major step forward.
"Now you have got a mechanism for the two countries to cooperate, or at least communicate," said Suzanne Maloney, who recently served on the State Department's policy planning staff and is currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Maloney said Crocker's decision to focus during the meeting on the common threat posed by Al Qaeda in Iraq was "a way to highlight areas of common interest with Tehran."
But others said they see the move as a disturbing sign of American weakness, arguing that Iran is exploiting the vulnerability of the Bush administration, which is plagued by continuing instability in Iraq and increasing domestic opposition to the war.
Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official who is now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said he fears that senior US officials are so desperate to show progress in Iraq that they are willing to make dangerous compromises with Iran.
"We think it is progress, but the Iranians are chuckling at their humiliation of us," he said. "We tend to show our desperation, yet Iran has yet to offer a single confidence-building measure."
He said he fears that the new push to work with Iran on Iraq's security could undermine US efforts to track down deadly Shi'ite militias that have received training and funding from Iran.
But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the diplomatic effort was meant to bolster the military actions.
"Our military is very active in engaging on the ground to try to break up these networks and to prevent these attacks," he said. "There is a diplomatic component to this . . . and that is engaging with the Iranians very directly and saying: You have interests here. Everybody has an interest in a stable, secure Iraq."
US officials say they have seen no positive change in Iran's behavior in Iraq since Crocker's first meeting with his counterpart, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, in May.
Crocker told reporters yesterday that US officials had seen an "increase in direct fire into the international zone," noting that the "overwhelming majority of that fire emanates from Sadr City," a Shi'ite area in Baghdad with strong Iranian ties, and that the firing is carried out by Shi'ite militias that receive training from Iran.
But Crocker also said monitoring Iran's activities in Iraq is difficult.
"We don't have full visibility in everything that is happening," he said.
This month, US military spokesman Brigadier General Kevin J. Bergner told reporters that captured militants told their interrogators that Iran's Revolutionary Guard helped plan a sophisticated attack in January on a compound in the city of Karbala that killed five US soldiers. The attackers entered the compound by wearing US uniforms and posing as US soldiers.
Yesterday's meeting, hosted by Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, focused solely on Iraq and did not touch on US efforts to block Iran's controversial nuclear program or Iran's continuing crackdown on freedoms inside Iran. But at one point, Iranian officials tried to move beyond the subject of Iraq, resulting in a heated exchange, Crocker said.
Crocker said he told Iranian officials that if they wanted to talk about subjects other than Iraq, then they would have to talk about Iran's support for Hamas and Hezbollah, two militant groups that are fighting Israel.
Iranian officials responded by saying that the United States blames Iran for all that goes wrong in the Middle East, according to Crocker.
In another heated exchange during the meeting, Crocker warned Iranian officials that Revolutionary Guard operatives were not safe from US arrest in Iraq.
Despite the tension, the meeting, which featured lunch and tea breaks, could signal a significant thawing of US-Iranian relations. The two countries cut off diplomatic ties after the 1979 Islamic revolution that deposed the US-backed Shah and led to American hostages being held for 444 days. Since that time, the Americans have had to use the Swiss embassy in Tehran as a liaison office to communicate. Some secret meetings have taken place, most notably on Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Crocker -- one of the State Department's top specialists on the Middle East -- attended some secret meetings in Geneva in a quiet, joint effort to set up the new Afghan government. Those meetings were abandoned as Washington made plans to invade Iraq in 2003. But in recent years, as US troubles in Iraq have mounted, State Department officials worked to revive the talks. 