Should Barak Obama become America’s 44th president, his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in sixteen months and “end the war†will require the cooperation of Iran. While the presidential campaign debate narrowly focused on the troop surge, the reduction of violence in Iraq has obscured one fundamental truth; the Iraqi government will continue to be dominated by pro-Iranian forces led by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. Pro-Iranian militias will remain largely in control of the Army, the national police and the intelligence apparatus. The question is; how can Obama win Iran’s cooperation in Iraq while simultaneously putting the brakes on their nuclear ambitions and support for “terrorist†organizations?
The calculus of a new Iraq peace strategy that incorporates Iran’s cooperation is straight forward. Iran wants dramatic reductions of the 130,000 U.S. troops perched on its borders and threatening its national security. Tehran also wants an end to U.S. troop cross border raids and ongoing U.S. covert operations inside Iran authorized by President Bush’s executive finding in 2007. On the other side of the ledger Obama needs to start moving troops out of Iraq immediately and shifting forces to Afghanistan. He also needs Iran’s help to reign in Iraqi Shiite militias, and push Shiite leaders to negotiate in good faith by giving minority Sunni forces enough political and economic clout to avoid the resumption of sectarian warfare.
Barak Obama is fully aware that his 16 month troop withdrawal timetable is not realistic. Iraq’s government, national army and national police will not be prepared to take full control by August 2010. Thus, he must play for time to allow Iraq’s government to stabilize while national reconciliation inches forward. If violence and U.S. troop deaths are minimal, Americans will be forgiving of an extended timetable. The critical next step in the process and one that is out of Obama’s control is the Status of Forces Agreement currently being negotiated with Iraq. It calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq’s major cities by June 2009, and for all U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by December 31, 2011. Under pressure from other radical Shiite forces and Iran to shorten the timeline, Maliki announced on October 19 that the agreement is not satisfactory and must be amended before being voted on by Iraq’s parliament. Thus, the Status of Forces Agreement will shape the withdrawal timeline that Obama ultimately will navigate.
Going forward, the political and military landmines that could impede progress toward a U.S. troop withdrawals in Iraq are formidable. Extremists and al Qaeda forces will not go gently from Iraq. Obama and American military leaders in Iraq will also need to craft a strategy to maintain the military separation between the Sunni Awakening forces and al Queda. In addition to the political reconciliation process, Obama will need the assistance of Iran and Saudi Arabia to help broker and guarantee agreements between the Sunni, the Kurds and the majority Shiite. The next big hurdle will be the national and provential elections in Iraq in 2009, and the explosive referendum on the status of Kirkuk. Ironically, Iran also has presidential elections in 2009. If President Ahmadinijad is defeated by a more “moderate†candidate, Obama’s ability to work with Iran and sell his policy to the Ameircan people could become immeasurably easier.
To secure Iran’s cooperation in Iraq, Obama must make the first move. At the moment, Iran holds a strong position in Iraq. Iran’s long standing ties with Iraq’s majority Shiite religious community, its substantial economic investments in Iraq and its ties to the Kurdish political leaders constitutes substantial political clout. Thus, it’s unlikely that Obama can coerce Iranian cooperation by threatening aerial strikes against their nuclear sites, getting sanctions on Iranian gas imports or an improbable land invasion. Quite the opposite, Obama could open the door to direct talks with Iran on the Iraqi conflict with soft power. By reviving recently scuttled proposals to establish direct commercial airline flights between Iran and America, and by resurrecting talks on opening a U.S. Interest Section in Tehran, Obama could signal to Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei that there is a genuine interest in diplomacy.
Apart from direct talks with Iran on Iraq, Obama should revive the Geneva Contact Group with Iran to discuss a broader array of issues. The Contact Groups’ back channel negotiations proved invaluable in gaining Iran’s assistance at the outset of the U.S. Afghanistan invasion. Obama will also be under tremendous pressure from Republicans and military hawks to halt Iran’s nuclear drive to master the uranium enrichment process. Obama’s initial efforts will likely center around getting an IAEA verification team back on the ground in Iran. Obama can score a huge political breakthrough if he can convince the Iranians to temporarily suspend enrichment activity while getting the inspection teams up and running. However, he may have to settle for allowing enrichment to continue as a condition for getting the inspection teams back in. The nexus of Obama’s position must be that today we have the worse of both worlds; no IAEA nuclear inspections and Iran’s continuation of the enrichment process. The non-starter that Obama must avoid is insisting that Iran stop its uranium enrichment program as a pre-condition to talks.
What is most critical to a new Obama administration’s foreign policy approach in the Persian Gulf is to cultivate an environment that encourages Iran to re-examine the opportunities to improve its relations with the United States and its own national security interest. Iraq is the place where the national security interest of the U.S. and Iran intersect and both sides have something to gain. If substantial progress can be made there, the potential to achieve progress in Afghanistan and on the nuclear standoff will be dramatically improved.
I’m sure the Iranian Islamic Republic, the state sponsor of terror, will be more than happy to negotiate with B.O., without preconditions, and fill the Iraqi power vacuum that will swiftly occur with each American’s step off those sands. That is a luxury they would have willingly purchased with the blood of another million martyrs, after their war against Sadam. B.O. and his superior foreign policy experience, 3 years traveling aborad, will certainly know how to “oh so nicely” just hand it over to a revolutionary ignorant 7th century clerical regime for a song and the adoration of the sheeple. A regime, that is ready to stone women or subjigate them for life and behead every Christian or Jew within a stone’s throw, while they butcher every gay or gay rights activist in sight.
Oh, maybe I’m a little old fashion, as I see the IIR Terrorist State isn’t using swords to kill a jew these days. Reported by “The American Congress For Truth,” yesterday, they have more recently decided to deploy shipping vessel dirty bombs via the Suez Canal last Yom Kippur; “Non-Starter?” Maybe, they should have their face rubbed in it, what do you think about it after reading this?
“Bomb Meant for Israel on Yom Kippur
On August 21st, 2008, the MV Iran Deyant, 44,458 dead weight bulk carrier was heading towards the Suez Canal. As it was passing the Horn of Africa, about 80 miles southeast of al-Makalla in Yemen, the ship was surrounded by speedboats filled with members of a gang of Somalian pirates who grab suitable commercial ships and hold them and their cargos and crews for ransom. The captain was defenseless against the 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades blocking his passage. He had little choice other than to turn his ship over to them. What the pirates were not banking on, however, was that this was no ordinary ship.
The MV Iran Deyanat is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) – a state-owned company run by the Iranian military that was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on September 10, shortly after the ship’s hijacking.
According to the U.S. Government, the company regularly falsifies shipping documents in order to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments to avoid the attention of shipping authorities, and employs the use of cover entities to circumvent United Nations sanctions to facilitate weapons proliferation for the Iranian Ministry of Defense. The MV Iran Deyanat departed Nanjing, China, July 28, and, according to its manifest, planned to sail to Rotterdam, where it would offload 42,500 tons of iron ore and “industrial products†purchased by an unidentified “ German clientâ€. The ship has a crew of 29 men, including a Pakistani captain, an Iranian engineer, 13 other Iranians, 3 Indians, 2 Filipinos, and 10 Eastern Europeans, stated to be Albanians.
The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates – 50 onboard and 50 onshore. The Somali pirates attempted to inspect the ship’s seven cargo containers but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the “access codes†and could not open them. Pirates have stated they were unable to open the hold without causing extensive damage to the ship, and threatened to blow it up. The Iranian ship’s captain and the engineer were contacted by cell phone and demanded to disclose the actual nature of the mysterious “powdered cargo†but the captain and his officers were very evasive. Initially they said that the cargo contained “crude oil†but then claimed it contained “minerals.†Following this initial rebuff, the pirates broke open one of the containers and discovered it to be filled with packets of what they said was “a powdery fine sandy soil†….
Within a period of three days, those pirates who had boarded the ship and opened the cargo container with its gritty sand-like contents, all developed strange health complications, to include serious skin burns and loss of hair. And within two weeks, sixteen of the pirates subsequently died, either on the ship or on shore.
News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4. and they witnessed some of the deaths due to exposure to ‘something on that ship.’
The Somali pirates initially set the ship’s ransom at $2 million and the Iranian government provided $200,000 to a local broker “to facilitate the exchange.†The $2 million dollar ransom agreement, which was supposedly secured on September 6th, never took place for reasons unknown. After September 10th, sanctions on IRISL were applied specifically because the company was said to engaged in illicit operations on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Serious negotiations were broken off completely. Iranian authorities subsequently denied that it agreed to the price nor had paid any money to the pirates. Nevertheless, after sanctions were applied to IRISL on September 10, Osman says, the Iranians told the pirates that the deal was off. “They told the pirates that they could not come because of the presence of the U.S. Navy.†The region is patrolled by the multinational Combined Taskforce 150, which includes ships from the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Subsequently, it was disclosed that the U.S. government had offered to pay $7 million to the pirates to “receive entry permission and search the vessel.†Officials in the Pentagon and the Department of State have consistently refused to comment on the situation.
The exact nature of the cargo remains officially a mystery but officials in Puntland and Baidoa are convinced the ship was carrying weapons to Eritrea for Islamist insurgents. “We cannot inspect the cargo yet,†Osman said, “but we are sure that it is weapons.â€
The US Navy (and the French and the Russians) have been hove to off the coast of Eyl, going anywhere once released, it will be seized once it gets to sea. The specific clauses that have been approved in both the UN and in Congress would allow the US Navy to seize the ship under the suspicion clause. The claims that there are weapons onboard, and the possibility there might be chemical weapons, has insured there is at the very minimum, an inspection of the ship by outside authority will be mandated. At this writing, the MV Iran Deyanat is at anchor, watched closely by American, French and Russian naval units.
Although American intelligence and government sources are maintaining a strictly observed silence, the same does not apply to the Russians and so it is that we learn the real story of the MV Iran Deyanat. She was an enormous floating dirty bomb, intended to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in proximity to the coastal cities of Israel. The entire cargo of radioactive sand, obtained by Iran from China (the latter buys desperately needed oil from the former) and sealed in containers which, when the charges on the ship are set off after the crew took to the boats, will be blasted high into the air where prevailing winds will push the highly dangerous and radioactive cloud ashore.
Given the large number of deaths from the questing Somali pirates, it should be obvious that when the contents of the ship’s locked cargo containers finally descended onto the land, the death toll would be enormous. This ship was nothing more nor less than the long-anticipated Iranian attack on Israel. Not the expected rocket attacks (which could be intercepted by the Israelis) but an even more deadly and unexpected attack by sea. It is very interesting to note that the Israeli government has in the past few weeks, been loudly demanding that the United States establish a naval blockade of Iran.
The reason for this blockade would be to prevent any more Iranian ships with deadly cargos from attacking either Israel or other targets from the sea.”
You think O.B. has the nuts for this? Think again!