Mixed Signals II

Michelle Bachman, wingnut for Minnesota, is at it again - but back-pedalling on her claim that Al Qaida and Iran have an agreement to split Iraq between them. In an op-ed in today's Star-Tribune she writes:

In a recent interview, I referred to Iran's influence in Iraq and the idea that Iran wished to partition Iraq. Some people would prefer to dismiss Iran
and Al-Qaida's push to undermine the freely elected Iraqi government, but the threat is very real.

I said that an agreement had already been made to divide Iraq and create a safe haven for terrorists. Rather, I meant that America's adversaries are in agreement that a divided Iraq benefits their objective to expel America from the region, resulting in Iraq being a safe haven for terrorists.

It was suggested that I might have revealed classified material. I was referring to publicly available reports out of the Middle East that declared the intent of the Iranian regime and Al-Qaida.

Let me make myself clear: Both Al-Qaida and the Iranian regime hope for the United States to fail in bringing democracy to Iraq. Destabilizing Iraq is one of their tactics. Moreover, they wish for the destruction of the United States and Israel.

...Try as we might to wish the Iranian and Al-Qaida problem away, they remain a great threat to American interests, our ally Israel, and the future of peace and stability in the region.

Meantime,a very much contrary view was expressed by an actual expert testifying on the Hill today. Barnett Rubin, one-time adviser to former U.N. special representative to Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi - says that Iran could very well be interested in cooperating with the United States to combat al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"They believe that al Qaeda is the number one threat to Iran, maybe after the United States," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Iran's ruling Muslim clerics are Shi'ite, an Islamic sect opposed by the Sunni-dominated al Qaeda and Taliban.

"They told me they had some information about it, and they would like to cooperate with the United States. But neither their government in Tehran, nor our government in Washington, had authorized the sharing of that information, which they found frustrating," Rubin added.

The committee's top Democratic and Republican senators said they would urge the State Department to consider Rubin's remarks ahead of two conferences with Iran and Syria set to begin next week in Baghdad.

"That's pretty important information," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the panel's Democratic chairman. "That directly relates to even the limited purpose that's been stated for meetings with Iran and Syria."

Rubin did not identify the Iranian officials he met in Kabul last November. But he said they also expressed interest in cooperating with the United States against the Taliban.

"Every time I meet with Iranians, they warn me that I should tell the U.S. government not to make a deal with the Taliban, because they're concerned that the U.S. is too soft on the Taliban," said Rubin, who is now at New York University's Center on International Cooperation.

Levin and Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia said they would order Rubin's testimony sent to the State Department with a request that the issue be considered for upcoming talks.

The Committee also quizzed administration officials on whether the US could use previously granted authority to strike across the Pakistan border against Al Qaida and Taliban camps. The answer, it seems, is yes. "That mission, everybody agrees, could be done," according to Retired U.S. Marine Gen. James Jones, who is the former top NATO operational commander in Afghanistan. But Defense Dept. undersecretary Eric Edelman said he didn't think the situation yet warranted such action as senators piled pressure on the White House to act if Musharaff won't.

That didn't make Pakistan's envoy to the US happy:

In an interview with Reuters, Ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani expressed concern that anti-terrorism cooperation among the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan was eroding and rejected what he said were attempts to unfairly blame Islamabad for an upsurge in cross-border violence.

Tampering with U.S. aid levels will fan anti-Americanism, strengthen the extreme right and Taliban supporters, be counterproductive, and "create problems for Musharraf to be able to continue the way he is," Durrani said.

Asked if it might trigger Musharraf's ouster, he replied: "I don't know. Possibly it could bring him down. It could destabilize the whole country. It could cause mega-problems there. That is possible."

Imagining that, somehow, the problems of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are seperate is one of the fonder fantasies of pundits talking about Central Asia. Pakistan and Iran are now the regions two Nuslim heavyweights and have always been competitors. It comes as no surprise, then, to hear that Iran would like help fighting Al Qaida and Taliban incursions. After all, both groups have been weilded as covert (blunt) instruments of foreign policy by Pakistans intelligence agency since their inceptions. One can only imagine what powers in the region - knowing this all along - have thought about American 'smarts' as the Bush administration keeps being taken by Musharaff's games.

As Levin pointed out today, the whole issue has tremendous implications for security in Iraq too - from the direct actions of Al Qaeda through to lawlessness created by the linked problems of drug and gun running. I'd be amazed if it wasn't a major topic at the 10th march conference.

Postscript: Thank heavens for Reuters, the most serious and useful of the newswires. It would be a lot harder to follow the convolutions of the region's issues without them.