The thousands of classified documents released by wikileaks have revealed, inter alia, that the Iranian regime has enjoyed far more extensive links with al-Qaeda and the Taliban than hitherto publicly acknowledged by American officials. The revelation will force some in the foreign policy establishment to reprise the role of Casablanca's Captain Renault, "shocked, shocked" that terrorists and state sponsors of terror would be in cahoots!
As the Wall Street Journal has reported, the documents shed light on direct contact between senior Iranian leaders and high level al-Qaeda operatives. Iranian officials have also brokered arm sales between North Korea and Pakistani Taliban. These revelations are a stunning rebuke to the advocates of detente with the Islamic Republic.
For years the received wisdom among professional Iran watchers from the currently ascendant "realist" camp was that the Shi'a regime would never collaborate with the Sunni Taliban and al-Qaeda. These commentators presented the supposed antipathy of Iranian leaders toward Sunni extremists and vice versa as a matter of principle. They spoke of the political incompatibility of the two groups as though they were discussing principled Western parliamentarians refusing to cross certain ideological divides -- not vicious Islamists willing to strike any alliance to advance their nefarious cause.
To Iranian dissidents however, the revelation comes as no surprise. The Islamic Republic abandoned Shi'a principle long ago. Today, only a thin veneer of piety masks a highly militarized state hell bent on unquestioned rule at home and domination abroad.
After all, this is the same purportedly Shi'a regime that for years kept the late dissident Grand Ayatollah Montazeri under house arrest, and continues to imprison the Grand Ayatollah Boroujerdi, an advocate for the separation of mosque and state. The same Shi'a state which forbids chanting allah-u-akbar on rooftops so as not to be reminded of its illegitimacy among the faithful.
These are the same devout Muslim leaders groveling for patronage from Russia and China, where Muslim minorities are brutally repressed. The same Shi'a theocrats for whom the color green -- the color of Shi'a martyrdom -- has become anathema.
Still, Shi'a-Sunni tensions span bitter and bloody centuries. If the two camps did not share enemies, they would likely be at each others' throats. Each may think it is taking tactical advantage of the other. Persians thrive on casting themselves as the permanent victim of Western imperialism. The wikileaks revelations however, remind us that they are also heirs to an ancient empire and thus highly adept at regional manipulation. And the predecessors of today's Taliban, though hateful of the West and modernity, did not hesitate to accept Stinger missile launchers from the otherwise satanic United States in order to wage jihad against the godless Soviet Union.
That said, the alliance between the Shi'a theocracy and Sunni extremists represents more than a case of the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend. The Islamic Republic and Sunni extremists do share common values. Both seek to overturn the regional status quo. Their backward-looking obscurantism aside, both are revolutionary movements. And both are devoted to a vision of irreconcilable enmity between the West and the Muslim ummah culminating in an apocalyptic confrontation.
New and old critics of American engagement in the AfPak region have already begun using the wikileaks to make the case for immediate disengagement. In the coming days and months, they will pressure the Administration to hew closely to its artificial timeline for pulling out. But the Iran-Taliban-al-Qaeda nexus revealed by the leaks suggests that such a move could be fatal. An al-Qaeda empowered by Iran's state apparatus -- with all the capacity for organized violence that implies -- could severely harm American interests in the region and beyond.
More importantly, the revelations suggest the United States is badly in need of an Iran policy that is not based on tired cliches and unsound assumptions. We need, in other words, a truly realistic Iran policy.
Sohrab Ahmari, an organizer in Boston's Iranian-American community, studies law at Northeastern. He has written on Iran and democratic reform in the Middle East for The Boston Globe, Commentary, The Huffington Post, and PBS | Frontline.
The evil people who comprise the government of Iran do not need food, don't much care for sleep, have little desire to watch their children grow. They just "are devoted to a vision of irreconcilable enmity between the West and the Muslim ummah culminating in an apocalyptic confrontation."
Iranians, according to Sohrab, are, well Shi'a -- given half a chance they would be at the nearest Sunni's throat.
Mr Ahmari, then uses this backdrop to scare us about a nexus between al-Qaeda's murderous aims, and Iran's statecraft based on unsubstantiated allegations in WSJ and the Guardian.
Many commenters on this thread have shown Mr Ahmari's assertions to be ahistorical. He would be doing himself the favor of appearing intelectually honest by replying to the questions raised.
"Still, Shi'a-Sunni tensions span bitter and bloody centuries. If the two camps did not share enemies, they would likely be at each others' throats. "
But the Sunni PM of Sunni Turkey, Mr Erdogan says:
"With [Shi'i] Iran, we have an agreement which dates back to 1639, the Kasri Sirin agreement, and we have not had any issues with Iran since then, all these years. And we have a land border of 380 kilometers. We have a lot of investment going in both directions, and our bilateral trade exceeds $10 billion. And after Russia, Iran is the second-largest supplier of natural gas to Turkey.
Source: http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1004/18/ampr.01.html
http://www.opednews.com/a/116308?show=votes#allcomments
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's deputy leader, and other senior al-Qaeda commanders, focussed on what they called the "Iranian-Crusade alliance" saying the Muslim Umma [nation] was being targetted.
In the one-hand-half-hour video, al-Zawahiri said that the Muslim Umma was facing a military, ideological and media crusade by the Iranian "coalition", which had given way to the US, by letting them invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
Source http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/09/200898124913695268.html
Tensions with Teheran have increased after 70,000 Iranian troops participated in war games on the the border with Afghanistan.
Amnesty International reported today that 10 Iranian diplomats and one journalist were ''said to have been killed when the Taliban guards entered the Iranian consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif.''
Source http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/04/world/afghans-say-10-iranians-may-be-dead.html?scp=215&sq=&st=nyt
James F. Dobbins, the Bush administration's chief negotiator on Afghanistan in late 2001, said Iran was "comprehensively helpful" in the aftermath of the 9-11 attack in 2001 in working to overthrow the Taliban militias' rule and collaborating with the United States to install the Karzai government in Kabul.
Source http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/07/world/main4508360.shtml
Actually, here is a quote from Ali Akbar Salehi, Vice President & Chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization:
Yes, I have a lot of respect for the US. For the people of the US. And I’ve always said this…I do not consider US as a country. I think US belongs to the entire human kind. It’s a human heritage. It’s - ah - I don’t think history will be able to produce another country like the US. Because it’s a country that has served humanity so much, in terms of technology. In terms of science. And there are very respectful people. Most of my professors were from the US. Even my Bachelor’s degree was from the American University of Beirut. Again I had a lot of US professors there. I feel indebted to them. This is part of my religion. You know, whoever teaches you something, you are indebted to them for your life. So my respect goes for the entire US people. But you see this is different when it comes to the actions of their government. Unfortunately some of governments in the US on some occasions, they have really done things that are not rational. Look in Vietnam for example. Look in Chile…when I was a student. Look at what happened in Iraq.
Source http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/13/world/main6390463.shtml
"...And both are devoted to a vision of irreconcilable enmity between the West and the Muslim ummah culminating in an apocalyptic confrontation. "
Actually, here is a quote from Ali Akbar Salehi, Vice President & Chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization:
Yes, I have a lot of respect for the US. For the people of the US. And I’ve always said this…I do not consider US as a country. I think US belongs to the entire human kind. It’s a human heritage. It’s - ah - I don’t think history will be able to produce another country like the US. Because it’s a country that has served humanity so much, in terms of technology. In terms of science. And there are very respectful people. Most of my professors were from the US. Even my Bachelor’s degree was from the American University of Beirut. Again I had a lot of US professors there. I feel indebted to them. This is part of my religion. You know, whoever teaches you something, you are indebted to them for your life. So my respect goes for the entire US people. But you see this is different when it comes to the actions of their government. Unfortunately some of governments in the US on some occasions, they have really done things that are not rational. Look in Vietnam for example. Look in Chile…when I was a student. Look at what happened in Iraq.
Source http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/13/world/main6390463.shtml
Game and Fish actually pulled 2 Grizz out of my neighborhood last week.
Kind of hard to achieve "domination abroad" when you have a military budget roughly the size of Sweden's.
Here in Canada, it made the news that according to the leak, one of our soldiers died in a friendly fire incident and yet the testimony of the man from his unit who was right next him when he was hit, as well as the rest of the unit contradicts that.
btw, thanks for the invite, yesterday.
Moderation was so heavy and the page format change made it hard to respond.
I didn't catch any admission in the article of the long history of Neoconservative and Israeli fraud in this area trying to gin up a war with Iran - which is a little surprising since there has been so much pathological lying about it, and it has been proven that they were lies. Why no context for yet another pack of claims?
Are we to believe that the military actually has some goods on the Iranians and kept it SECRET !!!! -------- hahahahha - doesn't pass the baloney smell test
Remember the phony Iranian weapons caches in Iraq, Iranian EFPs, trying to gin up a Iranian patrol boat incident (the filipino monkey), trying over and over to prove Iranian involvement in Afghanistan, fake Iranian laptops provided by Mossad, etc, etc etc, etc, etc,
Should we remind the Neocons and Israelis the outright criminal fraud they've ALREADY perpetrated on the American people? How they lied us into Iraq with Ledeen and the Mossad yellowcake fraud and stovepiping these frauds thru Feiths OSP?
Feith and Wolfowitz and Cheney should currently be imprisoned in the Hague
So, Hardy Boys at WSJ - if this is true how come Petraeus, the Kagans, and every other Neocon hasn't screaming about it for the last year - these leaks are news to the public not to the military.
Iran is very close to Karzi government, almost went directly to war with Taliban in 1998 when they slaughtered their diplomats in Kandahar, Northern Alliance was their proxy in its war with Taliban that consequently passed on to the US in 2001, and these Wahabie/Salafists consider Shia heritic and want them all dead, and Iran wants Heroin/Opium traffic that is putting huge strain on its economy, that is controlled by the Taliban, to end. There is no love between the two.
In addition, Iran is not interested in an unstable Afghanistan. Iran is one the top investors in Afghanistan, building roads, schools, hotels and clinics in Heart and northern Afghanistan. Iran with India, have invested huge amounts of money in the Charbahar port and infrastructure of roads and railroads that are designed to take goods to emerging central asian markets.
I do think it's the enemy of my enemy is my friend, though - with both the Taliban (an amorphous term) and Tehran likely placing pragmatism over past ideology. Bob Baer has gone into this habit by the IRI in the past, but like him, I do not buy how this precludes détente. The Soviets were constantly trying to undermine the US as well, and still the US had diplomatic ties.
That the IRI regime is "apocalyptic" is its own tired cliché, though. Tehran is looking for leverage, not trying to usher back the Mahdi (though some circles may want to). I wish I could say the same for Dispensationalists. All being said, I don't have time to sift through 92,000, and am not accustomed to taking the WSJ's word alone. I'd still like to see these primary
You need not take the WSJ at its word. The Guardian has reached the same conclusion (see my reply to liberty 11, above). It has also linked to at least one ISAF document on this issue. See here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/afghanistan/warlogs/7789E8A5-2219-0B3F-9F3EEDB12EA56051
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/16/world/main1501210.shtml
More broadly speaking, the best way to curb Iranian influence is for the US to continue to be a strong presence in the region - that is, to refuse to give in to the isolationist urge. And, of course, the best long-term solution is a democratic Iran. But that's an argument for another day.
Oh, wait, you're one of those who can't stand the democratic government that the vast majority of Iranians say they find represents them pretty well, and instead longs for the days when Iran can be put back under the thumb of the US.