Iraq’s national security adviser said on Friday he strongly opposed any military attack on Iran and, in contrast to the Bush administration’s policy, said the option should not even be considered.
“Attacking Iran? I say a big fat no. It’s a fatal mistake,” Mowaffak al-Rubaie said. “It should never be an option at all.”
The United States accuses Iran of using its nuclear program to develop atomic weapons and of funding, training and equipping militia groups that attack U.S. troops in Iraq. Tehran denies both charges.
President George W. Bush has said repeatedly that he is committed to diplomacy to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program but all options remain on the table.
The United States has also said it will aggressively target Iranian agents fomenting violence inside Iraq, but so far U.S. officials have said they see no need for military action inside Iran to disrupt support networks.
Rubaie said any attack on Iran would set the whole Middle East ablaze and Iraq would suffer most.
“It is not a strategy. It’s a mistake of Chernobyl magnitude,” he said, referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster in the former Soviet Union.
“The whole area will be in flames, and Iraq will be the battlefield for all this, and we will pay heavily,” Rubaie said at an event in Washington hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
“What we need from the United States government is to engage seriously with Iran,” he said.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker has held several meetings with his Iranian counterpart over Tehran’s role in Iraq, but Crocker said last month that the talks had yielded little.
Rubaie suggested the United States should engage in a broader dialogue with Iran to see what Tehran would be prepared to accept in return for acceding to U.S. demands.
“We need to discuss these issues seriously and we need to unify our position and coordinate our position — we, the government of Iraq, with the United States government,” he said.
VS, Here is what Tony Sayegh has been saying about USraeli plans for Iraq and for the region.
http://palestinianpundit.blogspot.com/2007/10/something-needs-explaining-in-iraq.html#links
“Not only in Iraq, but the U.S. is pushing the Sunni-Shia division on a regional scale as well. It is lining up Arab regimes (mostly Sunni) against Iran/Syria/Hizbullah. Even though Syria is predominantly Sunni, the alliance with Iran and the fact that the governing regime is Alawite (a derivative of Shiism) are used to put Syria in the Shia camp. As a side note, when Dahlan’s thugs used to torture and taunt Hamas’ supporters, they used to shout, “Hamas is Shiite!” which is not true.
The point is that this sectarian division has worked so well (from USraeli point of view) in Iraq that the plan is to replicate it throughout the region. Lebanon will be next.”
VS, It constantly amazes me how effective divide and conquer strategies(the oldest trick in the book!!!) still are. Even in these ancient areas of the world where you’d think people would have seen it all before. Maybe it’s like an interesting statement Sy Hersh made in one of last weeks video interviews.
He said he now thinks each generation is a “tabula rasa” and has to learn history’s lessons all over again for themselves.
VS,
Your take on Tony’s analysis?
I completely concur with him. The Shias were to “good guys” as long as Saddam and his supporters were the enemy. Now that the enemy is Iran, the Shia are the bad guys and the Sunni are gradually rehabilitated. Also, keep in mind the rumors about the Taliban joining the government in Kabul. The enemy is now Iran and the Empire will use anyone against it.
Sy Hersh is right: there has been a major redirection in the making for a while already. I prefer the term Scott uses for this: a stab in the back.