Realisation hits too late, too far

February 3, 2008

Realisation hits too late, too far


The admission by the US ambassdor to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, that the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have made Iran stronger is the first by a senior Bush administration official. American and international commentators have been saying it for some time now, but no US official was ready to say so, at least not in public.
Among the many puzzling questions that emerged in the run-up to, during and after the US-led invasion of Iraq was how Washington strategists overlooked the many predictable consequences of its military action. The ouster of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan worked in Iran's favour because the militant group had posed a serious challenge to Tehran. Iran almost declared war with the Taliban in the late 1990s, because of the then Afghan rulers' extremist theology and their killing of Afghan Shiite Muslims. Today, Iran has managed to strengthen its influence among Afghan groups and plays a key behind-the-scene role in the country. Ironically, it is also accused of supplying arms to the Taliban in order to keep Afghanistan away from being pacified under American control.
Iran is also reaping economic benefits from the toppling of the Taliban. Iran's trade with Afghanistan has gone up dramatically and Iranians have helped build roads and power lines in its neighbour.
Indeed, Iran is the best beneficiary from the US-led military action that led to the ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. The US not only removed what Iran saw as a hurdle to its regional ambitions but also helped install an Iran-friendly regime in Baghdad to the point that Washington, despite its massive military presence, is no position to call any shot in Iraq that Tehran deems to be conflicting with its interests.
Israel also benefited from the removal of the Saddam regime, which posed a challenge to the Jewish state and supported the Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation of their land. However, as things turned out, the threat to Israel, perceived or otherwise, has only grown in gravity. If the US were to end its military presence in Iraq today, Israel would find itself geographically closer to the Iranian "threat" because the Iranians would have access to Iraqi territory all the way to the western border.
Surely, these are some of the key considerations behind the apparent US quest to bring about fundamental changes in Iran, whether through military action or otherwise, and thus remove it as a challenge to US and Israeli interests.
Khalilzad's admission should be yet another eye-opener for Washington that it has only itself to blame for the predicament it confronts in the Middle East region today. Indeed, it might be an unintended consequence of US decisions in Afghanistan and Iraq, but Washington should not have brushed aside the key questions in its frenzy to wage military action in the region.