Monday, 03.03.08
How to Succeed in Bloodshed
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not only a thug: he is also a clown. He's now taken his roadshow to Iraq, where, in a display designed to delight and amuse audiences in Baghdad and around the world, he very dramatically chose to take a motorcade from the airport straight to the heart of the strife-torn capital. He was welcomed with "pomp and ceremony" by a leadership class that remains grateful to Iran for providing aid and shelter during the struggle against Saddam. No doubt Ahmadinejad sought to contrast his visits by Bush and Blair, who traveled by helicopter and generally skulked around in the hopes of not enraging the natives. One particularly credulous correspondent, Mark MacKinnon of Toronto's Globe and Mail, called Ahmadinejad's reception "a damning indication of how poorly things have gone for the United States during its five-year misadventure in Iraq." Point Ahmadinejad, you might say. Except, of course, that the American mission in Iraq is rather different, and rather more difficult, than Iran's mission.
Consider the fact that the United States did not ultimately embrace a strategy of "unleashing the Shia," that is, of aiding and abetting the Shia majority in its efforts to crush the Sunni insurgency by any means. Instead U.S. forces have sought to co-opt large swathes of the Sunni insurgency. The shift in strategy was anticipated by Stephen Biddle's brilliant analysis in "Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon," in which he called for balancing faction against faction in an effort to contain communal bloodshed. Iran, in contrast, has a more straightforward goal, namely continued chaos. Because of its size, oil wealth, and large Sunni minority, it is difficult to imagine Iraq becoming an Iranian vassal state, and so a steady bloodletting is, from Iran's perspective, a pretty good deal.
So let's take care not to draw any moral equivalence: the United States is trying, and often failing, to stop the killing. Ahmadinejad's Iran is eager to see it continue.
Regional revolutionGreg Buno considers how the visit marks the rise of Tehran's leadership over the region. |
Iran on the looseFrederick Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, and Danielle Pletka do much the same in a damning report from the hawkish American Enterprise Institute. |
Unwilling allies?Iranian elites tell Iason Athanasiadis that the US may soon have to acknowledge Iran's power and negotiate. |
The enemy of my occupier...House of the Rising Sons points out the folly of trading 5,000 American lives for improved Iranian-Iraqi relations. |
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I suppose the fact that the US started this whole debacle and opened the doors for Iran to continue the destabilization of Iraq is irrelevant.
No argument on your characterization of Ahmadinejad, but it's not "moral equivalency" to notice that Bush's stupid and illegal invasion of Iraq has boosted Iran's influence in that country and in the region. For the record, the US has already killed thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, for a doomed and criminally idiotic policy. As the cynics might say, it's worse than a crime, it's a mistake.
I doubt that Iran's long-range goal is "continued chaos" in a neighboring state. Frankly, the warm reception indicates that the Iraqi Shiite-dominated government plans friendly relations with its neighbor, which doesn't need to establish a "vassal" state there to get what it needs -- no more threats (remember Saddam?) on its western border. If we had played our cards with a brain, we might have had Iran's help eliminating the Taliban and Al Quaeda.
The phrase "The fact that" in the second paragraph could have easily been replaced with "that". Doesn't anyone read Strunk & White anymore?
Posted by Fred | March 4, 2008 12:05 AM