27 January 2006

Eye on Iran as US shapes alliances in Iraq

By Mariam Karouny
Reuters, 26 January 2006

BAGHDAD - Three years after Washington ousted Saddam Hussein from power, some Shi'ite leaders and even U.S. allies say it is switching favor to the ex-leader's Sunni minority to counter Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

U.S. officials say the efforts to "reach out" to Sunni Arabs are needed to undermine a violent insurgency they are waging and to foster a stable government.

But Shi'ite leaders brought to power by the U.S.-led invasion also see an attempt to clip their wings because of the influence over them of neighboring Shi'ite Iran.

"The Americans are focusing on the Sunnis and trying to get them into the political process even at the expense of others," said an official in the Shi'ite Alliance bloc, which won a near majority in the parliament elected last month.

"We've been talking a lot about this. The Americans are so focused on Sunni interests that their motivation goes beyond just promoting national unity."

The impression comes as U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad sits down at the negotiating table with rival groups jockeying for power in a coalition cabinet.

Western diplomats in Baghdad also see an interplay with U.S. policy toward Iran in those talks.

"The increased tension between Iran and the U.S. on the nuclear issue is affecting relations between Washington and the Shi'ites here," one European diplomat in Baghdad said.

"They are trying to find someone else, some other allies who will not turn against them (in Iraq) if things heat up with Iran."

U.S. officials deny a policy shift. They have made vocal criticism of Tehran's shadowy role in its biggest Arab neighbor, notably over allegations that Iranians were supplying arms to Iraqi insurgents.

"Nothing has changed," one U.S. official in Baghdad said when asked if Washington was shifting its favors from the once-oppressed Shi'ite majority to Sunnis who resent the loss of influence they suffered with the fall of Saddam Hussein.

IRAN-IRAQ RELATIONS CAUSE FOR WORRY?

Relations between Iraq and Iran, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, took a new turn after Saddam's ousting. The two countries exchanged high-level visits, and the U.S. official said Washington wanted their relations to be good.

"We have ... major problems with what Iran is doing in the world. However, we hope that Iraq and Iran can have a good bilateral relationship," the official said. "But that in turn depends on the Iranians respecting Iraqi national sovereignty ... Facilitating weapons flows is not a good neighborly act."

Britain, facing powerful Shi'ite militias in southern Iraq, has accused Iranians of providing deadly bombs and training.

The United States, along with Britain, France and Germany, want the
International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran to the U.S. Security Council for possible sanctions because of its nuclear program.

The West suspects Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian atomic program. Tehran denies this.

Analysts say Iran appears confident it can deter the United States from action against it over the nuclear issue out of fear about what it may do in Iraq.

"The suspicion is that Iran is now using support for insurgent groups as a means of putting pressure on the U.S. and UK in their attempts to refer Iran to the
U.N. Security Council," Mark Thomas of London's Royal United Services Institute wrote recently.

"The hope that the war would place on the doorstep of Iran a model democracy and a threatening military presence that would bring about reform ... and force Iran to forgo its nuclear ambitions ... has certainly not materialized."

Analysts point out that millions of Iraqi Shi'ites fought hard for Saddam against the Islamic Republic in the 1980's war, and that the ethnic divide between Arabs and Persians cuts deep across their shared religion.

But the leaders of the Islamist Alliance, which defied other Shi'ite challengers to sweep home in the new parliament, have strong personal ties to Iran, which sheltered many of them from Saddam. In the case of the powerful SCIRI party, Iran helped it found a formidable militia.

Even the most strongly Arab nationalist of the Alliance leaders, the young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, paid his respects in Tehran this week and offered his Mehdi Army fighters if Washington turned on Iran.

Though the religious schools of Iraq and Iran are not always at one, analysts say Iranian clerics could push many Iraqi Shi'ites into firmly opposing the United States if Iran came under a U.S. attack.

"One should not underestimate the influence Iran has on Shi'ites here," said another Western diplomat.

Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald

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Citation: Mariam Karouny. "Eye on Iran as US shapes alliances in Iraq," Reuters, 26 January 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060126/wl_nm/iraq_iran_usa_dc
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