The Friend of My Enemy
Stratfor on Sunni Iraq’s approach to Iran:
Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, the country’s top-ranking Sunni official, arrived in Iran on Sunday following a four-day visit to Syria to meet with Iranian First Vice President Parviz Davoudi.
… There are two notable aspects to al-Hashimi’s visit. One is that, given his background, it is clear he was not speaking solely as an Iraqi official; rather, he is in Iran as a representative of Iraq’s Sunni minority. The other is the timing of the visit: It comes a day after U.S. and Iranian officials met publicly for the first time over Iraq in Baghdad. Iraq’s Sunnis are moving to protect and assure their interests in anticipation of a U.S.-Iranian accord on Iraq.
… the new framework of relations to which al-Hashimi was referring is not merely the kind of normal bilateral relations one would typically expect between two sovereign, neighborly states. Instead, it has to do with a complex structure of relationships involving nonstate communities (the Shia, Sunnis and Kurds), as well as state actors (the United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and, of course, Iraq itself).
… al-Hashimi has suffered personally from Iraq’s sectarian conflict — both his brother and sister were killed by militants in separate shootings last April. The rising Shiite violence against Sunnis prompted him to urge the United States on Feb. 18 to brand radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army a terrorist organization.
The Mehdi Army certainly is not the sole source of the problem in Iraq, however, or even within Iraq’s Shiite populace. As a whole, the Shia are Iraq’s most internally divided community. The only Shiite force capable of exercising influence over all of its factions is Iran. Therefore, if Iraqi Sunnis wants to secure their material interests, they must do business with Tehran. Even the U.S. government has come to acknowledge this, as Saturday’s meeting in Baghdad illustrated.
There is, however, no such thing as a free lunch: If the Iranians are going to rein in their Shiite proxies in Iraq, there will be a price.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:34 am on Monday, March 12, 2007
2 Responses to “The Friend of My Enemy”
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March 12th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I wonder sometimes how much influence Iran has with the Shia as a whole. I am sure they have influence, but I have read that only a minority of Shia in Iraq trust Iran at all. Back when Iran and Iraq had their war, a million people died and the Shia of both countries did not have trouble killing each other. There were no widespread defections to the side of Iran and when Saddam put down the uprising among the Shia, I do not recall the Iranians doing anything to help the Shia.
March 12th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Terrye, nice points all. It is always a mistake to lump everyone into a collective.