US/K Losing Iraq War - Iran Emerges as Winner
international |
anti-war / imperialism |
other press 
Tuesday August 02, 2005 15:23
by redjade
RealPolitik played the Iranians may be the real winners
''Last week Iran and Iraq signed an oil deal they hope would pave the way to further diplomatic rapprochement between them. Iraq signed a preliminary agreement to export 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude from the southern city of Basra to Abadan refinery in southwest Iran, a spokeswoman for Iran's oil ministry said.''
Link for above:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050724/ids_photos_wl/r674999329.jpg
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Iraq Dances With Iran, While America Seethes
New York Times
http://tinyurl.com/88quq
Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, delivered a blunt message to Iraqi leaders during a visit here last week: the Iraqis would have to be more aggressive in opposing the "harmful" meddling of Iran in this country's affairs before the Americans could consider regional stability assured and the way clear for the United States forces to go home.
It was an argument with a paradox at its heart.
Regaining a semblance of stability here is a goal of both the Iraqi government and the Americans. But the country's elected leadership apparently believes that Iraq's long-term welfare will depend on building a strong relationship with Iran as well as on maintaining ties to the United States. As the Shiite Arab leaders who now hold sway in Baghdad see it, support from their co-religionists in Iran could be decisive in keeping Iraq from slipping further into chaos.
That is clearly not the kind of stability Mr. Rumsfeld has in mind.
The Shiite leaders, though, already draw support from Iran as well as the United States in the face of the deep Sunni Arab resentment that has fed the insurgency here. Their political parties have historically had much stronger ties to Iran than to the United States, which, as they vividly recall, did nothing while Saddam Hussein slaughtered up to 150,000 Shiites who rebelled after the 1991 gulf war.
The Shiite parties also assume that the American enterprise here will probably end as centuries of foreign adventures in this part of the world have - with the imperial nation eventually withdrawing and leaving the region to sort out its own affairs.
Before American forces invaded, some analysts in Washington predicted that Iran would hold little appeal for Iraq's 17 million Shiites because they are Arabs while most of Iran's Shiites are Persians, historical enemies of the Arabs. That view failed to anticipate the depth of tension and violence that have now divided Iraq's Arabs, largely along lines of the two main branches of Islam, Sunni and Shiite. Still, American officials hold to the belief that, in the end, Iraqi nationalism, which Shiites here share, will keep Iraq from being pulled into Iran's orbit.
The reality, however, is that Iraqi leaders, with the encouragement of their Iranian counterparts, are trying to forge stronger bonds with Iran in many spheres, from reconstruction to the writing of the constitution.
