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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Thursday, January 11, 2007

But what if the Iraqis don't want to be rid of the Iranians?

Apparently, during the raid on the Iranian embassy(?) in Irbil this morning, another raid was blocked by Kurdish military forces. There was a standoff as US troops attempted to approach the airport for a second raid which led to an hour and a half standoff between US and Kurdish forces which included both sides pointing loaded weapons at each other. (ABC, NPR)

Then, to top it all off, the Kurds demanded the release of the Iranians.

So, what happens if the Iraqis don't want to be rid of Iran?

It's just not as simple as George Bush believes.

posted by mikevotes at 6:28 PM

4 Comments:

  • This whole thing is weird. Why? Why go all commando on the consulate? What, are we ideas on ways to alienate Iraqi's?

    Sometimes, I think this is all just a bad dream and I'll wake up and it'll be Nov 7, 2000 and the networks are announcing Gore has won in a landslide...

    By Blogger -epm, at 8:32 PM  

  • Well, I think that the last series of arrests tells us alot about what's going on.

    In the last series, the story appears to be that the top level Iranians were not supplying military hardware on their trip, but were instead engaging in high level strategic talks with SCIRI and some of the other Shia factions.

    The Iranians, like the US, are trying to shape the politics in Iraq.

    I have great doubt that these Iranians in Kurdistan were massively smuggling weapons without Kurdish knowledge. I would think it far more likely that they are trying to influence the political shape of the future Iraq, and in that, weapons might play some bargaining role.

    Can't back it up at this point, but my hunch is that the US is trying to curb Iranian political influence through the current efforts.

    The problem is that the Iraqis believe that the Iranians will be around far longer than the US, and, unless you're a Sunni, they're offering a much better deal.

    (The Kurds are nominally Sunni by the way, but not in the real factional sense.)

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 8:53 PM  

  • Interesting. Thanks for the insight, Mike.

    Do you think this will have any international or UN repercussions? Is the international community, that is to say Europe, Russia, China, likely to balk at US aggression against Iran?

    By Blogger -epm, at 9:27 PM  

  • Yes, I think they certainly would, however, I don't know if they will make this their battle.

    The reality on who these people were, and exactly what they were involved is is still pretty murky, so I doubt the big powers would pick a battle (at least publicly) over this.

    But, if the US were to incur on Iranian territory in some significant way, or otherwise openly attack Iran in a non-dubious way, then yes, they would raise a diplomatic stink about it.

    But they also don't mind the conflict at all. They don't really want the Iranians to win, but atthe same time, they do want the US fully occupied with Iran.

    So, they will intervene on behalf of Iran if Iran needs the help.

    (very similarly to the role they're playing on the nuke program. They don't really want Iran to have the bomb, but the US burning diplomatic energy on the issue is good for them.)

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:38 PM  

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