Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari is due in Tehran any minute now. For a week, since his Defense Minister al-Dulaimi visited Iran, the press has been told that Jaafari will be making an official visit too, and bringing most of his ministers with him. I’m not quite sure what the secrecy and mystery behind the actual time and date of his arrival is; perhaps it has something to do with security, or perhaps it has something to do with him not wanting to embarrass his American protectors by making a high-profile excursion into the axis of evil.
Zalmay Khalilzad however, the new U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad, doesn’t seem to have a problem with the Prime Minister’s itinerary. He says that the U.S. encourages neighbors such as Iran and Iraq to have good relations, as long as Iran doesn’t interfere in Iraq’s affairs. Like stationing 130,000 troops in the country and advising the Iraqi government on everything, I suppose. (And when Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick advises al-Jaafari to bear U.S. concerns in mind when it comes to any dealings with Iran, that doesn’t constitute interference, does it?)
But let’s take Khalilzad’s words at face value. If Iraq and Iran should have good relations, then why, dear Ambassador, shouldn’t the U.S. and Iran have good relations? After all, we even share a common enemy in the Sunni insurgency (and the Taliban in Afghanistan). If we recognize that Iran, Islamic Republic that it is, is important to the stability of the region, and that economic and military cooperation between her and our newly minted ally is good, then why are we still talking sanctions at the U.N. and regime-change in Tehran?
Maybe if sanctions are imposed on Iran when a nuclear deal with the Europeans becomes impossible, the Iraqis will sell everything (that they get from us) to Iran that she needs. Maybe Iranian oil will flow through Iraq, on its way to the world’s black markets. Or maybe if we first bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and then remove the regime in power (which we would surely have to, to stop them from retaliating) the Iranian leadership will be offered asylum in Baghdad by the Iraqi leadership. Now wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony: our troops having to protect, in the Green Zone, the very Mullahs they help depose.