Sunday, October 07, 2007
Do Shi'ites and Sunnis cooperate? An Iraqi newspaper speaks.
An Iraqi newspaper has spoken out on a subject that defines our competing conceptions of the threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Background
It is something of an article of faith on the foreign policy "left" -- including, I am told, many in the State Department, the CIA, and academia -- that Iran, a revolutionary Shiite state, does not ally itself or even significantly cooperate with Sunni extremists because of the ancient divide between the two main branches of Islam. Conservatives not only believe that the very idea is a priori hogwash -- enemies often cooperate against perceived common threats, look at Hitler and Stalin -- but that the facts support precisely the opposite conclusion if only we weigh them honestly. Michael Ledeen's The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction
In keeping with his conviction that all Muslims should follow his example, Khomeni soon challenged the Sunnis' control over the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, even backing an armed protest during the hajj. And despite the centuries-old confrontation between Sunnis and Shi'ites, he unhesitatingly worked with Sunnis against their common enemies, a practice that began nearly a decade before the revolution, when Yasir Arafat's (Sunni) Fatah trained the precursors of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon. In public tribute to this invaluable assistance, Khomeini invited the PLO leader as the first foreign guest of the Islamic Republic and promised Arafat the PLO would receive a $1 royalty on every barrel of Iranian oil. It was a grand gesture, but only that; the Palestinians had to settle for the promise, as the money didn't arrive.
Khomeini's ambitions were not limited to the Middle East. From the moment of the overthrow of the shah, the leaders of the Islamic Republic have declared, and waged, war against the infidels of the West, above all against Americans and Israelis. The hostage crisis that doomed the Carter presidency was the opening salvo of a long war against America, branded the "Great Satan" by Khomeini. The principal instrument in this war has been the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which was created in Lebanon (where the Syrians provided safe haven in areas they occupied) shortly after the revolution. In the 1980s, Hezbollah -- operating in tandem with the PLO -- organized suicide bombing attacks against the French and American marine barracks, and the American embassy in Beirut, as well as the kidnappings of American missionaries and military and intelligence officers.
Two of the latter were then tortured to death. In the 1990s, Hezbollah conducted lethal attacks against Jewish targets in Argentina, for which leaders of the Iranian regime have been indicted.
Throughout this period, and contrary to a longstanding myth -- according to which Sunnis and Shi'ites hate one another so much they cannot cooperate, even against a common enemy -- Iran worked closely with Sunni terrorists, just as the Revolutionary Guards and Arafat's Fatah worked to prepare the Iranian Revolution. The most dramatic example is its close relationship with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda. The 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa -- for which Al Qaeda took full credit -- were in large part Iranian operations. Bin Laden had asked Hezbollah's operational chieftain, Imad Mughniyah, for help making Al Qaeda as potent as Hezbollah, and the original concept for the simultaneous bombings in Kenya and Tanzania came directly from Mughniyah. The Al Qaeda terrorists were trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the explosives provided by Iran. After the attacks, one of the leaders of the operations, Saif al-Adel, took refuge in Iran, where he remains active today.
Despite all this evidence, it became a near unassailable conviction that Sunnis and Shi'ites just could not work together. It remains a recurring theme among academics and government experts and is the conventional wisdom in the intelligence community and at Foggy Bottom. But nobody told the Iranians or their Sunni allies.
The myth of an all-but-unbridgeable chasm between the Sunnis and Shi'ites underlies the failure of the American intelligence community to recognize that Iran aided both Sunni and Shi'ite terrorists in Iraq against Americans and Iraqis -- and against each other -- following the defenestration of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Indeed, Iran has attempted to foment civil war all over Iraq, aiding both sides in every potential conflict, from Sunni vs. Shi'ite to Turkomans vs. Kurds, Arabs vs. Kurds, and so on. It was simply a continuation off the mullahs' war against American, which had been under way for nearly three decades.
Terrorism analyst Thomas Joscelyn makes much the same point in the introduction to his study "Iran's Proxy War Against America (free pdf)":
No fallacy today is more misguided or more dangerous than the widespread belief that Iran, the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism, and al-Qaeda are not allies in the terrorists’ war against the West. A corollary myth holds that Hezbollah—Iran’s terrorist proxy and the “A-team” of international terrorist organizations—has also not allied itself with al-Qaeda.3 Both memes are rooted in the belief that religious and ideological differences preclude sustained cooperation between the Shiites of Iran and Hezbollah, and the Sunnis of al-Qaeda.
Both authors cite numerous examples of the contrary received wisdom, that Iran does not work with Sunni extremists.
Now, I do not have any independent expertise to draw upon. I have read seven or eight books on Iran in the last couple of years, including several from the conventional perspective (Kenneth Pollack's The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America
, which even Michael Ledeen says is one of the must-read books on Iran, though he disagrees with Pollack's conclusions, and Ali Ansari's Confronting Iran: The Failure of American Foreign Policy And the Next Great Crisis in the Middle East), and all I can say is that I believe it is far more plausible that the Iranians are making common cause with Sunni extremists, including al Qaeda, than that are not. You should know, therefore, that I believe, but cannot prove, that those who deny such linkages are, well, in denial.An Iraqi newspaper speaks
Against that backdrop, I was fascinated to read this editorial (originally in Arabic, English translation courtesy of Watching America's James Jacobson) from the newspaper Sotal Iraq (which obviously has no love of either the Americans or the current government of Iraq, either):
We don't know why it always pleases Mr. Ali Khamenei [Iran's Supreme Leader] to stick not only his nose into Iraqi affairs, but also his tongue and hands, for whether the opportunity is right or not - whether during a university address or a televised speech - he always has lots to say about Iraq. He has given so many such speeches that no Iraqi likes hearing them. In every speech, whether in Arabic or Persian, he thunderously and monotonously speaks in an erroneous, terse and ignorant way, portraying himself as a light at the end of the human tunnel, and as though he is somehow associated with the Imam al-Mahdi [the ultimate savior of humanity - the Muslim Messiah].
And even if the Iraqi government and its largest bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, have clear religious and economic ties with Iran, and even if it acts as a branch office of the Iranian government in Iraq, it seems Khamenei has little respect for the Iraqi government. By ignoring Iraqi government reports about recent successes fighting terrorism and its claims about reconstruction and the quality of life, he undermines Baghdad's credibility. But who is sincere, Ali- Khamenei or the Iraqi government? As an answer to this question, I suggest that if this is what the clerics are saying about politics, then they are not being honest.
It's astonishing to see the Iraqi resistance portray Khamenei as a defender of the interests of the Iraqi people for his support of their program of spiritual, material and physical sabotage, and for giving his full permission to the resistance campaign against the government, against its own people, and against its own religious communities. He even turns a blind eye when the resistance kills Shiite clerics.
Khamenei and his friend Nasrallah [leader of Hezbollah] couldn't care less what happens to the Iraqi Shiite resistance, since they're two Persian warlocks that deserve to be murdered and skinned. Ali-Khamenei doesn't really care about religion or doctrine. In the midst of his political games he forgets God, his principles are political and don't hold fast to the principle of Allah: “Do not kill the soul which Allah would protect.” Rather, he follows the principle that, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend; even he is also an enemy of God and regardless of the horror of his crimes.
Since “birds of a feather flock together,” it must also be the case that the raven of al-Qaeda flies with the raven of Iran to form a single flock united by evil. We would do well to remember that when Saddam was running out of time, he sent his aircraft to Iran, and that it was Tehran, despite the pretend-bitterness of Ayatollah Khomeini - who acted as though ending the war were like drinking a cup of poison - that did all it could to prevent the overthrow of the Baathist regime and maintain the bloodthirsty Saddam as ruler over Iraqis. (bold emphasis added)
Commentary
Obviously, a newspaper editorial is not in and of itself evidence that Iran and al Qaeda are working together. It is, however, telling that an Arab newspaper editor -- who is, after all, in the business of selling newspapers to Arab Muslims who might not buy them if they thought he were a complete buffoon -- does not believe that he is alienating his audience by asserting that "it must be the case" that Iran and al Qaeda are working together. So while Western academics and State Department Arabists apparently believe that it is highly unlikely that Iran and al Qaeda would cooperate because of the supposedly unbridgeable confessional divide within Islam, an Arab newspaper in business in Iraq believes that it is virtually self-evident that they "fly as a single flock." If it is in fact implausible that Sunnis and Shi'ites would cooperate against the United States, why would an Arab newspaper catering to Arab Muslims say otherwise?
12 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Oct 07, 12:06:00 PM:
Off topic:
Blame game
By 
D.E. Cloutier, at
Sun Oct 07, 05:39:00 PM:
Everybody is guessing. That is the annoying thing. The U.S. spends enough on intelligence to have definite answers. Decisions are easy if you have enough information.
Another thing: America's leaders should talk to the leaders of all other national governments--Castro, Chavez, Mugabe, Ahmadinejad, everybody. Silly State Department games do nothing but keep the U.S. out of the loop in some places. You don't have to like people to "do business" with them.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Oct 07, 06:23:00 PM:
Diplomatic recognition comes part and parcel with normalized relations (including unfrozen accounts) and embassies full with extra-territoriality and diplomatic immunity. An, for example, Iranian embassy in the US is just a landing pad for Revolutionary Guard and Hezb Allah operatives. With diplomatic immunity.
There may be other issues that the diplomats know about, but that's a major problem in itself.
Other kinds of contact may go on unofficially through intelligence agencies or unofficial military links, but no one ought to know about those.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Sun Oct 07, 06:41:00 PM:
It is time the State Department changes the way it does business, Dawnfire82. Top bankers in the Middle East often know more about what is happening in the region than American diplomats do.
By the way, Lee Iacocca agrees with me about talking to everybody. He basically said the same thing on Neil Cavuto's show a while back.
"...no one ought to know about those"
Yeah. That's why we had such great intelligence about Iraq, I guess.
I have too much experience with governments to fall for the "secrecy" bit.
By , at
Sun Oct 07, 08:52:00 PM:
Israel's Proxy war against Iran
THe author should be taken to task.
By , at
Sun Oct 07, 11:55:00 PM:
TigerHawk, I complement you on your brilliant analysis (Do Shi'ites and Sunnis cooperate? An Iraqi newspaper speaks. 10/07/2007). It refutes the mistaken popular belief among leftist intellectuals that the enmity between Shiite and Sunni militant jihadists is too great to permit their cooperation. You put the spotlight on numerous examples over the past thirty years, since the Ayatollahs took Iran hostage, when these dueling devils of darkness--the Sunni and Shiite terrorists—assisted each other toward their common greater aim: the destruction of Israel and the United States. Thank you for your important insights and many supporting references on this topic.
By A Jacksonian, at
Mon Oct 08, 09:54:00 AM:
I have never understood the meme that sectarian oriented islamic terror organizations will not work together. While they have different outlooks and slightly different end-state goals, they utilize a similar set of operational concepts and, even more telling, is the same suite of logistics contacts internationally.
It was not so long ago, in the mid-1990's that many on the Left decried the international arms dealers and such, as being 'amoral death dealers'. Yet it is those very same characteristics that allow such individuals to support not only the IRA, ETA, PLO but also Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Jemmaa Islamiyah. And as one of the individuals started life in the international narcotics trade from the Bekaa region from Syria, the blending of the illicit narcotics trade also envelops the overall suite of terror contacts.
Consider, for a moment, the rolodex of the most proficient of these individuals, Monzer al-Kassar. He has been involved in the family narcotics trade since the 1960's, shifted to include money laundering and the arms trade by the late 1970's, has a suite of international diplomatic credentials by the 1980's where he works with North/Secord/Hakim to move shipments of arms to Honduras from Poland (then inside the Communist Bloc). From there he utilizes the contacts garnered from that deal to help Carlos Menem in working out a trade deal with Syria, sets up the S. American Hezbollah operation, coordinates the attacks on the Israeli Embassy and AMIA jewish center with Imad Mugniyah, then, while this is all going on, makes firm ties with the Cali and Medellin drug cartels for the cocaine-heroin exchange business. From that he then utilizes his heavy weapons and transport contacts to ship arms from Argentina to the Balkans and Somalia, while both are under arms embargo via the UN. He has reliably dealt with the Sicilian, Albanian and Russian mafia, utilized his network of contacts to have one if not two individuals killed who were willing to testify against him in Spain and still kept his hand in S. America by coordinating arms deals with FARC.
The rolodex of that man is impressive, including contacts with bin Laden in the late 1990's which he then utilized in early 2001 to scuttle a UK company that he was utilizing to cover his money laundering efforts. His secondary contacts roam the entire suite of organized crime, narco-trafficking, money laundering and arms deals. While he does have sectarian affiliation, that is secondary to his outlook on deals to be made. Neither al Qaeda or Iran or Hezbollah or HAMAS or the PLO or FARC or ETA define his outlook, yet he has supplied them all. Do those who think that sectarian organizations are so immune from the necessities of logistics that they will pass up a good contact with deep ties across that realm of trade? That is just plain nuts.... even worse he has the contacts to allow him entry into each of those organizations. Anyone who can utilize a corrupt UK investment association to get his hands on an Argentine gold mine for money laundering via the S. American gold mafia is not someone any of these organizations could afford to even give affront to: individuals like this are the mothers milk of terrorism and organized crime.
Shifting over to the Muslim Brotherhood's HAMAS, for just a second, reveals that they are willing to take money from Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and, of course, corrupt charity organizations and such banal things as extortion, kidnapping for ransom and plain, ordinary theft. Their contacts stretch out via the MB itself, and via a more dedicated set of institutions and contacts also playing the 'who knows who' game to get what is needed. That is not only a sectarian organization, but it takes money across all sectarian boundaries and doesn't worry about where the money 'comes from' over much, but just how they will use it.
No matter how you cut it, these terrorist organizations of all stripes and types, utilize a similar set of logistic contacts on a global basis. That large compendium does, indeed, contain actors that are very singularly oriented towards one outcome or view, but they do not make up the large percentage of operatives and have little impact on the global black market trade system. The inability of those in academia, punitry or political ideology to see past partisan views to this broader underpinning of terrorism means they are being disingenuous in their views and unwilling to change views to fit facts as they come to light. That is blindness of the worst sort as it ignores the surficial problem of islamic sectarian terrorism being an outgrowth of a much larger system of transnational terrorism melding with international organized crime. While these folks are talking ideological tactics, the logistics structure remains untouched: even getting rid of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and other 'terror supporting regimes' will no longer end the melded threat that has now spread across all terrorism. And what is notable is that such terrorism, across the board, has gotten more violent and deadly over time, with the islamic sort just worse by a matter of degree from the others. To begin addressing *that* however, puts multiple ideological groups at risk: narco-terrorists, Communists, Leftists, Nationalists leveraging transnational killing, Right-wing groups doing similar. Of course to address *that* means actually looking into the class of warfare represented and addressing it with the tools we have at hand... tools that already identify it as illegitimate predatory warfare that is a risk to all Nations. And those practicing such as hostis humani generis - enemy of mankind. We appear to be very fearful in picking up those tools, and that will be the death of us.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Oct 08, 01:04:00 PM:
The State Department is not an intelligence organ. They have one, technically, but it sucks. They are diplomats, not spies, and get their information from meetings with officials and at cocktail parties. i.e. they hear what the other side wants them to hear, which actually does serve an important purpose in international relations.
Expecting State to behave like a spy agency, and do the things necessary to actually find out what's really going on, is a false expectation. Most State folks are uncomfortable with the very idea that we spy on foreign powers, because it undermines trust and makes their diplomatic tasks harder. It'd be worse if State was responsible for collecting secrets, too. (like in the old days) But if you just take what the other side says at face value, without paying their secretary to tell you what they *actually* say behind closed doors, you'll never understand what's going on.
"I have too much experience with governments to fall for the "secrecy" bit."
Then you need some more. Both secrecy and deception are vital tools of statecraft, especially when a country has to go against popular opinion to pursue its interests. A couple of the loudest, meanest European critics of the Iraq war went out of their way to help us when they thought they could get away without their media noticing. Several Middle Eastern powers have a history of the same.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Oct 08, 02:16:00 PM:
This comment has been removed by the author.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Oct 08, 02:47:00 PM:
"The State Department is not an intelligence organ...Both secrecy and deception are vital tools of statecraft..."
I know all that stuff, Dawnfire82. I'm an international arms dealer, for Crissake. I deal with the State and Defense departments regularly.
The bottom line: We didn't know what was happening in Iraq. We don't seem know as much as we should know about Iran. You may be happy with the situation. I am not.
America's intelligence failures over the years are well-known. In the past, when government documents were declassified, the U.S. government often knew less than I thought did, not more than I thought they did.
No significant attacks in the U.S. since 9/11: Obviously Defense intelligence is doing a pretty good job. I am talking about political intelligence--the information the White House and State Department must have to make the best political decisions.
I have stated my position. We will simply have to agree to disagree.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Oct 08, 03:04:00 PM:
P.S. I am talking about international political decisions, not domestic political decisions. (I just thought I would make that clear before some left-wing Democrat jumps on the word "political.")
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Oct 08, 03:11:00 PM:
P.P.S. By "arms dealer" I am talking about military aviation. I don't sell anything that goes "boom."
