QandO

August 24, 2004

Why Iran's involved in Najaf
Posted by McQ

Claude Salhani of The Washington Times has an interesting piece examining the apparent Iranian hand in the fighting in Najaf:

To establish the "why" of the fighting in Najaf, one must first try first to ascertain the "who." Who stands to profit from the turmoil? Who could be pulling Sheik al-Sadr's strings and, of course, to what end?

The answer, no matter how you turn this thing around, dissect and analyze it, seems to point in one direction: Iran.

Sheik al-Sadr has traveled twice to Iran in recent months. He maintains close links with Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, a cleric in the city of Qom and a close confident of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Analysts believe he receives support and most probably financing from Iran.

So it would seem safe to assume there's certainly a relationhip between al-Sadar and top level clerical and political (not that they're really separated in Iran) leaders. As the Times notes, that answers the "who". But what about the "why". Why is Iran doing this and what is the message they're trying to send?

The reason is the Iran's ayatollahs are sending Washington a message. The message is "make sure that you, Washington, will convince Israel to stay away from our nuclear sites and desires." Otherwise, the fighting currently under way in Najaf can easily expand to other localities and grow in intensity. Lives are, unfortunately, expendable in this part of the world.

In other words, keep Israel on a leash and ensure there's no "Osirik". In the meantime, Iran has been issuing not so veiled threats to Israel, according to The China Daily:

Last month, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Iranians would "crush" Israel if it attacked the Persian state. Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani, upped the ante this week, telling Al-Jazeera television that his government might launch pre-emptive strikes to protect its nuclear facilities if they were threatened.

"We will not sit to wait for what others will do to us," he said, adding that some Iranian generals believe the doctrine of pre-emption is "not limited to Americans."

The warning was seen as aimed at Israel, alluding to the Israeli strike on Saddam Hussein's reactor two decades ago.

Israel has responded with its own warning to Iran:

A senior Israeli official responded that Israel's government was ready for all eventualities.

"We're not seeking war with Iran. But if a real threat materializes, Israel will know how to defend itself," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, reflecting long-standing Israeli policy of not talking publicly about matters involving nuclear arms.

In other words, Najaf is a warning to the US that its control of Israel is key to the amount of discord and insurgency it will continue to face in Iraq. While the US has quite a bit of influence over Israel, it cannot stop Israel from doing what it perceives to be a threat against its existance. Iran has the means to hit Israel and Israel knows it. As Iran nears the completion of its nuclear weapons, Israel is going to be less and less inclined to listen to any US entreaties to hold off hitting Iran preemptively.

Of course hitting Iran wouldn't be as easy as hitting Osirik in Iraq was. Iran has learned from the Iraqi strike and has spread its facilities over a wide area and studded them with air defenses. But with Iran's threat to consider hitting Israel preemptively (as noted above), tensions are high.

Najaf, if Salhani is correct, is Iran playing international hard-ball. As mentioned here, whoever has the reigns after the election of November is going to be faced with a terrible dilemma and few real options for dealing with Iran.

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