Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The hidden war is unfolding

February 13, 2007

The hidden war is unfolding

THE US is steadily moving towards military action against Iran regardless of the consequences of such action for the countries in the region, which can ill-afford yet another conflict even as the Iraqi crisis is spinning out of control.
Recent actions such as detaining Iranians in Iraq and accusing Tehran of arming insurgents in Iraq to carry out attacks against US and allied coalition soliders there seem designed to provoke Tehran into doing something that would tip the scales for immediate US military strikes.
It could even be an Israeli-engineered false flag operation that would conveniently leave accusing fingers pointed at Iran. The world has seen how the US built a non-existent case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq through fabricated intelligence reports and then bypassing the UN when it became clear that the world body would not approve of its plans. Today, the US administration continues to wave away evidence that it had plotted and carried out the invasion of Iraq after misleading the American people as well as many in the international community. We are living through similar times now in the context of Iran, which is for sure targeted for "regime change."
By no means are the Iranians angels. They have their vested interests in Iraq and the rest of the region and are acting accordingly. Their moves and rhetoric appear as if designed to invite American military action. They appear to be conviced that they would be able to wage a "defensive" war that would be very costly for the US.
Is is as if US President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who deeply mistrust the intentions of each other, have decided that they could not live with each other and want a confrontation.
While Tehran insists that US policy is aimed at toppling the theocratic regime and subjugating Iran, Washington contents that the Iranians are violently undermining US efforts to stabilise the region and also seeking to develop nuclear weapons in order to pose a threat to the US's "strategic partner" in the region — Israel.
It is known that one of the re-election promises that Bush made to his hardline supporters in late 2005 was that there would be a "regime change" in Iran before he leaves office. As such, Tehran's fears might be justified to a certain extent.
On the other hand, there are contradictions in the US charges against Iran.
Isn't it in Shiite Iran's interests to see a stable Iraq since Shiites closely linked to Tehran are in power in Baghdad? Why should it fuel the insurgency, knowing well that its friends in power would be undermined?
Another contradiction is that if we go by the US accounts of how Iran-made explosive devices are being used in Iraq it would be clear that the recipient of the weapons are Sunni insurgents rather than Iraqi Shiites. Would Iran be interested in supplying the Sunnis, knowing well that the weapons would be used against Shiites as much as against the US-led coalition soldiers?
A possible explanation is that Tehran does not want the US to stabilise Iraq because that would mean the American gunsights being trained against the next target — Iran. Tehran could be seeking to force the US to withdraw from Iraq by making the strife-torn country a hotplate for the US military and thus allow the majority Shiites to rule the country without interference after the sought-for US departure.
In the meantime, the hidden war is unfolding Iraq while the drumbeats of an open war are gaining in pitch every day. We in the Gulf are caught in between, with not-very-realistic hopes that something would happen somewhere sometime to spare the region the fallout of yet another military conflict.