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Dubai's Al-Sharqiyah Television (3 March, 1600 gmt newscast) carried the following intriguing report on the purpose of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Iraq (translation by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, subscription):

"The Iranian delegation accompanying Iranian President Ahmadinezhad has asked Iraqi officials to merge the Iraqi economy with the Iranian economy and ensure that they complement each other, particularly in the financial and industrial areas, with a view to breaking the sanctions imposed on Iran in the fields of banking and money transfers. The delegation also asked that Iraqi financial institutions and banks be used to fill the void created after several world banks stopped sending direct money transfers to Iran. Furthermore, the delegation asked that Iraqi industrial organizations be used as a cover for importing some equipment and materials that are used in military industries and that support the Iranian nuclear programme, which is facing difficulties in obtaining some raw materials and industrial equipment. The Iranian president and his delegation stressed the need to achieve financial, industrial, trade, and oil integration [between the two countries], noting that this tasking should be assigned to people who believe in strategic alliance with Iran."

Labels: Iran, Iraq, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Michael Rubin writes in this week's Weekly Standard ("Unintelligence on Iran's Nukes: Appalling gamesmanship at the CIA") that the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which gave Iran what President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared its "greatest victory during the past one hundred years," was a crude assault on the Bush administration's Iran policy. Rubin gives several illustrations of how the CIA has involved itself in policy initiatives since the fall of Baghdad to coalition forces in 2003. Here are two:

It was not uncommon, for example, to see false or exaggerated intelligence attributed to the Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi when it had actually come from Kurdish officials. This was never more clear than in a July 17, 2004, New York Times correction. The paper was retracting three stories which alleged a connection between Chalabi and an Iraqi source code-named Curveball, whose information later turned out to be bogus. The editors explained that their correspondent had "attribute[d] that account to American intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity." They continued: "Those officials now say that there was no such established relationship." In other words, intelligence officials lied to a reporter to achieve a policy aim.

Such behavior is not limited to debates over policies impacting countries thousands of miles away. W. Patrick Lang, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official, told the American Prospect in 2005 that his intelligence community colleagues used leaks to try to influence the 2004 presidential election. "Of course they were leaking. They told me about it at the time. They thought it was funny. They'd say things like, 'This last thing that came out, surely people will pay attention to that. They won't reelect this man.'"

Administration critics have long maintained that the White House has sought to politicize the intelligence community and cook the evidence to advance geopolitical aims. Rubin maintains that the direction of influence has been in the opposite direction. It is the CIA that has unabashedly sought to influence policy.

Labels: CIA, George W. Bush, Iran, Iraq, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, National Intelligence Estimate, NIE

Recent news stories reveal an Iranian regime eager to assert hegemony over neighboring Iraq and less willing to accommodate U.S. efforts to promote the stability needed to pull out 20,000 troops by July.

• Iraqi officials announced that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will travel to Iraq on March 2 for a visit of two to three days to discuss bilateral relations.
• Iran postponed the fourth round of trilateral talks with the U.S. and Iraq to discuss ways to improve Iraq's security. Mirembe Nantongo, spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said:

  "We are happy to sit down for the talks, but it is increasingly clear Iran is not. We've been ready to participate for weeks."

  Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the Iranians did not provide a reason for the postponement. (See In a First, Ahmadinejad To Visit Iraq Next Month: Iran Postpones Fourth Round of Talks With U.S..)
• Lieutenant-General Ray Odierno, the outgoing deputy to General David Petraeus and soon to be Army Vice-Chief of Staff expressed concern about Iranian influence on Iraq:

  “I think Iran wants a weak Iraq....They want a weak government of Iraq. It is probably in their best interests.”

  (See Surge general accuses Tehran of backing militias to weaken Iraq.)
• The U.S. military linked the explosions in an open-air market in Sadr City to the Iranian-backed Special Groups. (See Special Groups behind Sadr City bombing.)

Yossef Bodansky's hypothesis -- discussed in this space yesterday -- that the U.S. and Iran had cut a deal signaled by the December release of the NIE report -- is looking increasingly far-fetched. Not so, alas, his fears of increased Iranian dominance in the Gulf.

Labels: David Petraeus, Iran, Iraq, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ray Odierno, Yossef Bodansky

Was the National Intelligence Estimate of November 2007, which declared that Iran had “halted its nuclear weapons program” in 2003, a signal of a secret deal between Iran and the Bush administration? Yossef Bodansky argues in Defense & Foreign Affairs’ Strategic Policy (January 2008) that it was and that the Bush White House thereby sealed a “Faustian deal” with the Mahdist regime of Iran led by Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamene’i and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. According to Bodansky, the Iranians agreed to help the U.S. achieve a face-saving and safe withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq by 2009 in exchange for the U.S. permitting the ascent of Iran as the region’s hegemonic power. [The Bodansky thesis is echoed by a report – based on anonymous sources – that appeared in Insight Report, Top Officials fear administration reached secret deal with Iran.]

Here is a timeline, drawn primarily from the Bodansky report:

• Mid-July 2007: In Damascus, three insurgent groups – the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Ansar al-Sunna and Iraqi Hamas -- announced a united front of seven Sunni-led insurgent organizations fighting the U.S. occupation in Iraq were ready to “negotiate with the Americans in anticipation of an early U.S. withdrawal. Abd al-Rahman al-Zubeidy, political spokesman of Ansar al-Sunna announced opposition of his group to al-Qaida:

  "Resistance isn’t just about killing Americans without aims or goals. Our people have come to hate Al-Qaida, which gives the impression to the outside world that the resistance in Iraq are terrorists."

  Wayne Wright of Washington’s Middle East Institute and an expert adviser to the Iraq Study Group commented at the time:

  "This does reveal that despite the widening cooperation on the part of some Sunni Arab insurgent groups with US forces against al-Qaida in recent months, such cooperation could prove very shortlived if the US does not make clear that it has a credible exit strategy."

  (Insurgents form political front to plan for U.S. pullout, Seumas Milne, The Guardian, July 19, 2007.)
• August, 2007: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Khamene’i, and Ahmadinejad agreed to an “experimental reduction” in anti-U.S. violence in order to expedite the U.S. withdrawal by “providing the Bush Administration with ‘success’ and no excuse to linger in Iraq.”
• Early September 2007: As they prepared for their report to Congress on the success of the surge in U.S. combat troops, Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), were apprised of Tehran’s proposal and decided “to give it a try.”
• Early November 2007: Mokhtar Lamani, Arab League Ambassador to Iraq, lamented the increasing Iranian power over Iraq:

  Meanwhile, Iranian influence is becoming more and more palpable. Iraq has become a winning card in the hands of the theocratic regime of Tehran. As the French saying goes, “little by little the bird makes its nest.”

  (My lost year in Baghdad, Mokhtar Lamani, Ottawa Citizen, November 1, 2007)
• Mid-November 2007: Violence and U.S. losses came down to the level of February 2006, due in part to a significant reduction in Iranian-made road-side bombs, IEDs, and other Iran-origin weaponry.
• Mid-November, 2007: Iraqi spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh commended Iranian “restraint in sending people and weapons to destabilize Iraq.” Al Dabbagh claimed the turning point was the visit by Nouri al-Maliki to Iran in August. (see Teheran curtailing alleged support for insurgents, Associated Press, November 18, 2007.)
• Mid-November 2007: General James Simmons, Deputy Commanding General, Multinational Corps-Iraq, joined in the Iraqi government’s praise for Iran.

  We believe that the commitments that the Iranians have made appear to be holding up,” Simmons said, adding that Iranian-made weaponry still found in Iraq appeared to have been smuggled in months ago.

  After the news conference, Simmons told The Associated Press that the Iranian move followed “a significant amount of negotiations.” He would not give details, however, saying he was not privy to the discussions.

  (U.S. general: Iran sticking by pledge to stem flow of weapons, explosives to Iraq, Robert H. Reid, Associated Press, November 15, 2007)
• November 2007: Professor Karim Kamar of the Kurdish Salaheddin University in November 2007 remarks indicate that the Kurdish state in the north is de facto an independent state:

  "It is simple, for my students Iraq does not exist …

  "To feel part of a country, its language should be spoken. However Arabic is no longer even taught. Or if it is, then as a foreign language—a little less even than English…

  "For them Iraq is far away, and associated with bad memories. For the man in the street, it is a neighbour one must get along with because it could turn malicious. That’s all. Their country is here."

  (For Kurds, Iraq is a distant memory, Kurdish Media, November 17, 2007. See also: Iraq Kurds defy Baghdad on oil deals, Kurdish Media, November 26, 2007.)
• Mid-November, 2007: Iraqi Islamic Council Chairman Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim is summoned to Tehran for “crucial discussions” with Khamene’i, Ahmadinejad and other senior officials
• November 24, 2007: Ryan C. Crocker, provided a sobering assessment of the prospects for political progress in Iraq:

  “We are seeing encouraging signs of movement,” he said, but added, “This is going to be a long, hard slog.”

(U.S. Scales Back Political Goals for Iraqi Unity, Steven Lee Myers and Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, November 25, 2007.)
• November 25, 2007: Hakim, having returned from Tehran to Baghdad, challenged American claims that Iran was providing weapons used to kill Americans.

  “These are only accusations raised by the multinational forces and I think these accusations need more proof,” the chairman of the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council, Sayyid Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, told reporters. Mr. Hakim, who has been undergoing treatment for lung cancer in Iran, said the Iranians have insisted in meetings with Iraqi officials that “their true will is to support the Iraqi government” and to promote stability. “They have a long history of standing by the Iraqi people and that is their official stance that is presented to the press without any hesitation,” he said.

  (Iraqi Shiite Politician Defends Iran Against U.S. Accusations, Sameer N. Yacoub, Associated Press, November 26, 2007)
• November 29-30, 2007: Hakim met with President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington. Though the meeting did not receive media attention in the U.S., Bodansky claims that Hakim delivered Tehran’s olive branch of cover for an “honorable” withdrawal and a veiled ultimatum that the alternative would be a “cataclysmic regional war on Tehran’s terms.”

  Some confirmation of Bodansky’s claims are provided by an Al-Arabiya television interview of Hakim on December 3, 2007 (translated by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, available through subscription). The interviewer, Pierre Ghanim remarks:

  “following your meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice two days ago, you said that Iran supports Iraq, while the United States accuses it of killing or helping kill US soldiers.”

  Hakim responds:

  “The Americans do not deny that Iran has taken positive positions and backs the Iraqi Government. However, the United States accuses Iran of [interference] and Iran denies them. Iraqis have succeeded in getting the two countries to open a constructive dialogue in the interest of Iraq, its security, and its stability. During the dialogue, the two sides can determine whether or not Iran interferes in Iraqi affairs. The best way to settle this issue is for the two sides to resume the dialogue.”

  Asked if he is mediating between Tehran and Washington, Hakim says:

  ”I was among the first to call for a dialogue, and I am endeavouring to get the two sides to open productive, constructive, and useful dialogue in the interest of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi Government.”

  Bodansky describes Hakim’s talks with Rice as:

  ”focused on Iraq’s security, national reconciliation, and Iraq’s reconstruction and issues related to neighboring countries”. Hakim said that he convinced official Washington that “Iran plays a positive role in establishing security in Iraq”. Hakim also disclosed that he had delivered to the Bush White House “documents proving that Iran has supported Iraq”. Meanwhile, Tehran accepted that the agreement, or understanding, with the Bush White House would be most secret. Nevertheless, Tehran now expected a clear signal from Washington that the threat of a US strike on Iran was over.

Bodansky claims that Washington’s signal was loud and clear:
• December 3, 2007: release of the latest National Intelligence Estimate that completely reversed the US position on Iran. “We judge with high confidence that in Fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” Bodansky points out that the US intelligence community started drafting the NIE in August 2007, when Maliki brought the first Iranian offers.
• Early December 2007: [Not cited by Bodansky]Mohammad Kharroub, in Jordanian al-Ra'i (translated in "A Miserable Policy," Mideast Mirror, December 5, 2007, available through subscription) reports:

  Ambiguity reins [sic] supreme; so much is certain. But to spread such a climate in the Middle East...only raises further questions about the aims that the Bush administration hopes to achieve. This is especially true since the [Iran intelligence] report opens the door wide open to numerous ‘compromises’ between Washington and Tehran in light of the stalemate over the various explosive files (Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine) that have exhausted Washington.

  Also in the Mideast Mirror, there is this report of [Israeli PM] Ehud Olmert's response to the NIE [also not reported by Bodansky]:

  After returning from Annapolis and a long meeting with Bush, he said in an interview with [the Israeli daily] Yedioth Aharanot: ‘Those in the know are not speaking. What happened in the great drama of which we are speaking, also applies to Iran. I prefer those who fight on the ground to those who speak in salons.’

• Early December, 2007: A key Sunni insurgent leader using the nom de guerre Dr Abdallah Suleiman Omary told the Guardian that the indigenous Sunni insurgency groups—now known as al-Sahwa (the Awakening) -- were taking money and weapons from the Americans in return for confronting al-Qaida militants.

  ”Al-Sahwa has made a deal with the US to take charge of their local areas and not hit US troops, while the resistance’s purpose is to drive the occupiers out of Iraq. We are waiting in al-Sahwa areas. We disagree with them but do not fight them. We have shifted our operations to other areas”.

  (Iraqi insurgents regrouping, says Sunni resistance leader,Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, December 3, 2007)
• December 3-5, 2007: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an invited guest at the meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Doha, Qatar. Having Iranian representation at this meeting is unprecedented, inasmuch as the group was formed as a counterweight to Persian geopolitical influence in the gulf. Bodansky claims that Iranian opposition sources report that Ahmadinejad and Secretary of State Gates met secretly at this time. Bodansky claims a deal was reached in which the U.S. recognized Tehran's hegemony over areas surrounding Iran in return for a stable flow of oil and gas from these regions as well as a guarantee of an honorable withdrawal from Iraq. Bodansky claims that senior Gulf Arab officials confirm that senior U.S. and Iranian officials met in Doha and agreed on such a deal.
• December 8, 2007: Senior Iranian security official Ali Larijani claims on Iran's state-run television that Iran has helped improve security in Iraq:

  "This time around, if the Americans pay attention to the fact that Iran has a prominent role in the Iraqi issue and can help -- because of its moral influence in Iraq and its political influence -- it can help the Iraqi government."

  In the IPS News article reporting the above quote, there is also this additional piece of confirmation of high-level contacts between Iran and the U.S. and of the proposed December 18 meeting:

  Despite their mutual animosity, however, Iran and the U.S. have held three rounds of high-level talks on Iraqi security. On Sunday, Iran's foreign ministry announced that Iraqi officials have proposed holding the next round Dec. 18.

  (Iran eases support to radical group – for now, Roxana Saberi, IPS News)
• December 8, 2007: Not cited by Bodansky are the tough and at times sarcastic comments of Secretary of State Gates on Iran in his speech to a security conference in Manama, Bahrain: "Everywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos, no matter the strategic value or cost in the blood of innocents."
  Iran aims 'To foment instability'Washington Post, December 8, 2007.
• December 10, 2007: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari confirmed that the U.S., Iraq and Iran would meet on December 18, 2007 for high-level security talks. Zebari is quoted as saying: "As for the cooperation of Iran, we indeed have many indications to see that it has provided assistance…[Tehran is now convinced that] instability in Iraq will affect their interests sooner than later."
• Mid-December 2007: the U.S., Bodansky reports, got "cold feet" about a high-level tripartite meeting that would include senior officials of the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] and MOIS [Ministry of Intelligence and Security]. Instead, a secret "non-meeting" in Baghdad's Green Zone is held with a high-level delegation led by IRGC Commander Major-General Mohammed Ali Jafari
• December 18, 2007: The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to extend the U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq for one year. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki promised this would be the nation's "final request" for help.
• December 23, 2007: David M. Satterfield, Iraq coordinator and senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is quoted by the Washington Post as saying that Tehran has decided "at the most senior levels" to rein in the violent Shiite militias and that this decline "has to be attributed to an Iranian policy decision…. "We are confident that decisions involving the strategy pursued by the IRGC are made at the most senior levels of the Iranian government." (Iran Cited in Iraq's Decline in Violence, Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, December 23, 2007.

Bodansky concludes with a depressing set of prophecies, no less apocalyptic than that of the Mahdists in Iran:

For the elites of the Greater Middle East, left to be determined are only the modalities for the US withdrawal.

Irrespective of the outcome of the 2008 elections in the United States, the US has committed to withdrawing from Iraq, and, as far as the Greater Middle East is concerned, from the entire region as well….

However, withdrawal from Iraq will entail a great strategic price for the United States, its friends and allies.

The post-US Greater Middle East will – in the view of this analyst – be characterized by the profound and at this stage largely irreversible weakening of the centralized states and their ruling elites. In their stead, the region will see the empowerment of religious-clannish elites, all beholden to Mahdist Tehran and dependent on the mullahs for their survival. The ascent of militant Shi'ism will affect the entire Greater Middle East, as well, for it will empower the Islamist-jihadist trend and elites also in the Sunni heartlands.

A major war for the "liberation" of Jerusalem and the ensuing destruction of Israel would consolidate the Islamist-jihadist hold over the Greater Middle East for centuries. Tehran is eager to escalate any grassroots reaction to the enduring US presence in Iraq into such an anti-Israel war. Even if such a war was to be averted by a speedy and smooth US withdrawal, this would only be postponement of the inevitable….

Adamant on saving his own political legacy, Pres. Bush made his Faustian deal with Mahdist Tehran. Thus, the Bush White House will be able to tout success; the US will be able to declare victory and withdraw safely. Left behind will be a tormented region now having to face on its own both the wake of the US adventure and the vacuum created by its withdrawal. Cognizant, all aspirant regional powers arre already posturing and surging in order to seize the historical opportunities virtually at all cost.

This cataclysmic struggle, which I believe will dwarf all regional wars to date, has barely begun.

There is no denying that the release of the NIE report last December was puzzling. David Kay, the veteran arms inspector who in 2003 could not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, comments on the NIE in an interview for the Council on Foreign Relations:

“I cannot believe that anyone who worked on nuclear proliferation for any period of time would make a statement like that.

(Kay: Recent Iran NIE Recalls Erroneous 2003 Iraq Estimate)

It is dismaying to believe that the bureaucrats in the intelligence services were able to produce a flawed NIE report in order to preempt the administration from any possible military move against Iran in the remaining months of the Bush term. It is far more disheartening to think that the report signaled a secret deal with Iran that gives that fanatical regime hegemony over a large swath of the Middle East in exchange for a face-saving withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Yet, whether or not the Bush administration has entered into such a "Faustian" arrangement, the dire, even apocalyptic outcome Bodansky envisions may ensue anyway should Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton be in a position to carry out their promised hasty Iraqi retreat.

Labels: Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamene'i, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, Iran, Iraq, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, National Intelligence Estimate, NIE, Nouri al-Maliki, Yossef Bodansky