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Iranian to aid US war moves on Iraq?



The a current New Yorker magazine raises the possibility that the essential 
missing component for a US "regime change" offensive against Iraq could be in 
the works.

The New Yorker magazine claims Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi has 
delivered the Bush administration a war plan using Iranian help in an 
offensive against Iraq "which calls not only for bombing but for the 
deployment of thousands of American Special Forces troops." The article 
claims Chalabi has won permission to open an office for his group, the Iraqi 
National Congress, in the Iranian capital Tehran. The grand schemes of Mr. 
Chalabi are nothing new. On the other hand the implications of Iranian 
cooperation with the US scheme are immense.

In the past month the Iraqis have raised the possibility of an ambitious US 
plan that goes far beyond a renewed escalation of bombing. They have raised 
the prospect that Bush II may try to remove the current government in Iraq. 
This scenario posits an attack that would fracture Iraq into foreign occupied 
regions in the North and south and leave a truncated regime around Baghdad. 
The Turkish military would occupy (as peacekeepers of coarse) northern 
Kurdish Iraq. This outright Turkish occupation would calm Ankara's fears of a 
Kurdish republic in northern Iraq arising in the absence of a strong central 
government.

The Turks are well prepared for this venture. Ten years of ethnic war against 
the Kurds within Turkey proves their competence at pacifying Kurds. They have 
gained extensive experience in large-scale invasions into northern Iraq. 
(Under US and British air patrols called 'no-fly-zone' patrols.) In recent 
years pro-US Iraqi Kurdish leaders have militarily cooperated with Turkey in 
northern Iraq. Turkish troops are being widely promoted by Washington as 
"Islamic" foreign occupation troops with UN credentials for Afghanistan, the 
"green helmets." Last week the US has sent high level delegations to both 
Turkey and Northern (Kurdish) Iraq to discuss the possibilities of US attacks 
on Iraq. Publicly these officials denied US plans to target Iraq as the next 
theatre in the "War on Terrorism."

The boldest or most reckless part of the plan is with the Shia dominated 
south. For this sticky question outright US military occupation is proposed. 
This occupation would serve to dampen any political aspirations of the Shia 
within the region and thus calming the nervous Kuwaitis and other Gulf 
rulers. But can Iran, no matter how accommodating its leadership to the US, 
reconcile itself to an extensive US military presence on its border? I find 
this hard to believe. Although the Iran/Contra affair proved the most 
unlikely partners are capable of some covert cooperation, open cooperation 
with Washington is a political liability for the current government in Iran. 
Memories of the 1979 revolution and the US attacks on Iran during the First 
Gulf War remain.

A large scale US attack on Iraq could provoke the opposite reaction within 
the region. There would be considerable sentiment amongst the former bitter 
enemies of the 1980s to ally against further US intervention in the Gulf.

Bob Allen
Campaign to End the Sanctions
Philadelphia, PA.

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