The Boston Globe | April 20, 2006
http://www.iht.com//articles/2006/04/20/opinion/ediraq.php
Each day's news from Iraq highlights a veiled reality: that American
and Iranian interests overlap there significantly. Iran, which has
influence on the main Shiite factions in Iraq, has declared it will
take part in talks with the United States about ways to bring
stability to Iraq. Yet neither Iran nor the Bush administration is
eager to acknowledge publicly that they need each other to help
prevent a full-scale civil war in Iraq.
Nonetheless, this need explains the pirouette the two governments
had to perform when they agreed to discussions about Iraq. The U.S.
ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, who is to conduct the talks
with Iranian interlocutors, has had to declare that the agenda will
be confined strictly to Iraq and that instead of engaging in a
negotiator's give-and-take, he will simply demand that Iran cease
arming Iraqi Shiite militias and transporting Al Qaeda operatives
into Iraq.
Obviously, if this were the exclusive content of the talks, there
would be no talks. The clerical regime in Iran does not need a
direct encounter with Khalilzad to discover what it is about their
meddling in Iraq that displeases Washington.
An American-Iranian dialogue about Iraq can only have meaning if it
is premised on the need for reciprocal actions.
The starting point for such a cooperative rescue operation in Iraq
must be an overt admission that the sectarian civil war now brewing
there portends a nightmare for both Iran and the United States. In
the past month, more than 100 Iraqis a day appear to have been
victims of blind revenge killings - Shiites being murdered simply
for being Shiites and Sunni Arabs for being Sunni.
President George W. Bush already seems a feckless sorcerer's
apprentice to much of the world because of the radical disorder his
blunders have helped induce in Iraq. But the current sectarian
purging of neighborhoods and villages could yet turn much worse. In
the extreme case, the government Khalilzad is trying to help knit
together would not be able to prevent a complete dissolution of the
Iraqi state.
And, as Khalilzad has warned, Iraq's neighbors would then be sorely
tempted to intervene, if not with uniformed armed forces then with
irregular proxies.
This prospect would not only signify a complete collapse of Bush's
much-trumpeted vision of democratization in Iraq and the surrounding
region, it would bring a regional war between Shiites and Sunnis to
Iran's doorstep.
The Americans can go home when that war starts. Iran cannot. So no
matter how spiteful Iran's leaders may be toward the United States,
it is in their vital national interest to help the United States
save Iraq from the disasters that now threaten.
Each day's news from Iraq highlights a veiled reality: that
American and Iranian interests overlap there significantly. Iran,
which has influence on the main Shiite factions in Iraq, has
declared it will take part in talks with the United States about
ways to bring stability to Iraq. Yet neither Iran nor the Bush
administration is eager to acknowledge publicly that they need each
other to help prevent a full-scale civil war in Iraq.
Nonetheless, this need explains the pirouette the two governments
had to perform when they agreed to discussions about Iraq. The U.S.
ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, who is to conduct the talks
with Iranian interlocutors, has had to declare that the agenda will
be confined strictly to Iraq and that instead of engaging in a
negotiator's give-and-take, he will simply demand that Iran cease
arming Iraqi Shiite militias and transporting Al Qaeda operatives
into Iraq.
Obviously, if this were the exclusive content of the talks, there
would be no talks. The clerical regime in Iran does not need a
direct encounter with Khalilzad to discover what it is about their
meddling in Iraq that displeases Washington.
An American-Iranian dialogue about Iraq can only have meaning if it
is premised on the need for reciprocal actions.
The starting point for such a cooperative rescue operation in Iraq
must be an overt admission that the sectarian civil war now brewing
there portends a nightmare for both Iran and the United States. In
the past month, more than 100 Iraqis a day appear to have been
victims of blind revenge killings - Shiites being murdered simply
for being Shiites and Sunni Arabs for being Sunni.
President George W. Bush already seems a feckless sorcerer's
apprentice to much of the world because of the radical disorder his
blunders have helped induce in Iraq. But the current sectarian
purging of neighborhoods and villages could yet turn much worse. In
the extreme case, the government Khalilzad is trying to help knit
together would not be able to prevent a complete dissolution of the
Iraqi state.
And, as Khalilzad has warned, Iraq's neighbors would then be sorely
tempted to intervene, if not with uniformed armed forces then with
irregular proxies.
This prospect would not only signify a complete collapse of Bush's
much-trumpeted vision of democratization in Iraq and the surrounding
region, it would bring a regional war between Shiites and Sunnis to
Iran's doorstep.
The Americans can go home when that war starts. Iran cannot. So no
matter how spiteful Iran's leaders may be toward the United States,
it is in their vital national interest to help the United States
save Iraq from the disasters that now threaten.
--
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