A sea change is beginning
to occur in Iraq: for the first time since the insurgency took off,
the terrorists are starting to run.
This is occurring not because the United States has successfully
promoted political dialogue among Iraq’s torn communities,
although a successful dialogue is certainly to be desired.
It is occurring not because the United States has given in to the
recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton commission and others, who have
suggested a policy of unilateral capitulation to the terror-masters
pulling the strings of the insurgency in Damascus and Tehran.
Nor is it occurring because we have suddenly become better at winning
“hearts and minds” in Iraq, although such an effort, as
described by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, would appear to be sound
counter-insurgent policy.
The terrorists are on the run for one reason only: they fear the
United States.
“In Tehran, they are now referring to the United States as
mar-rouye domesh vastadeh – the Cobra standing on his
tail,” says Shahriar Ahy, an Iranian-born political analyst who
helped build the post-war broadcasting network in Iraq.
The sea-change began on January 10, when President George W. Bush
announced that the United States would no longer tolerate Iranian and
Syrian intelligence officers using Iraq as a playground for their
murderous games.
When he announced the troop surge in Iraq, Bush also put Iran and
Syria on notice. “Iran is providing material support for
attacks on American troops,” he
said. “We will
disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of
support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the
networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in
Iraq.”
Those weren’t idle words. That very night, U.S. forces raided
an Iranian intelligence headquarters in the Kurdish town of Irbil,
capturing six Iranians. The Iranian government screamed that they
were diplomats, but apparently only one had any sort of diplomatic
credentials. My sources tell me this was Hassan Abbassi, a well-known
strategist who is close to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The other five turned out to be Revolutionary Guards officers. My
sources identified three of them by name, and told me they were
providing a treasure trove of intelligence to their U.S.
interrogators (who appear to be receiving help from an intelligence
expert from the opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq).
“They are key people in the Sepah Quds,” the overseas
terrorist arm of the Revolutionary Guards, a former Iranian
intelligence officer told me.
Iranian exiles and Kurdish sources identified another captive as
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Djafari Sahraroudi, a Kurdish affairs expert who
is wanted by Interpol for his involvement in the 1989 murder in
Vienna of Iranian Kurdish dissident Abdulrahman Qassemlou.
Also among those detained was Mohammad Jaafari, an aid to National
Security advisor Ali Larijani, the sources said.
The raid in Irbil was in fact the second U.S. backed raid that
captured senior Iranian revolutionary guards officials recently.
Shortly before Christmas, coalition forces
raided
the headquarters of Shiite political leader Abdul Aziz
al-Hakim, just three
weeks after he was in the Oval Office meeting with President
Bush.
During that raid, they captured documents which American Enterprise
Institute scholar Michael
Ledeen called “a
wiring diagram” of Iran’s terror networks in Iraq.
Iran is believed to be operating a number of intelligence offices in
Iraq similar to the one in Irbil, to plan terrorist attacks against
U.S. forces and supply money and equipment to insurgents.
“The mullah infiltration of Iraq is far more extensive than the
U.S. has thought,” said Iranian exile Sardar Haddad. “They
have infiltrated every single ministry, especially the defense and
interior ministries, not just with one or two people, but massively.”
Referring to the Irbil incident, “It’s not five Iranian
agents, but 5,000,” he added.
The U.S. is also investigating Iran’s alleged involvement in
the kidnapping and murder of five U.S. soldiers near Karbala on
January 20, and reportedly
has detained two high-ranking Iraqi
generals suspected of
collaborating with the attackers.
I am told that those interrogations have turned up astonishing
information, including documents sent by the Iranian regime to Prime
Minister Nouri Al-Malaki, offering to “welcome” an
extended visit to Iran by Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and
top members of his Jaish-al Mahdi militia.
According to one source, the generals revealed the names of nearly a
dozen top Iraqi politicians who were on the payroll of the Iranian
government, including
a Shiite member of parliament
convicted and sentenced to death in Kuwait for his involvement in the
1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait city.
Jamal Jafaar Mohammed is said to have fled to Iran in recent days,
fearing U.S. forces would arrest him and send him to Kuwait. He was
elected to parliament in 2005 as a member of Prime Minister al-Malaki’s
Dawa party.
Yesterday, U.S.
forces arrested deputy
health minister Hakim Zamili, accused of helping Shiite militiamen to
infiltrate his ministry. He was also accused of funelling money to
Shiite death squads loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr.
The U.S. Cobra is finally standing on its tail. This strategy is
clearly working.
In Tehran, shortly after the January 10 speech by President Bush,
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei set up two commissions,
terrified that the policies of President Ahmadinejad were taking his
regime to defeat.
A domestic policy review board is examining Ahmadinejad’s
dismal handling of the economy, which has led to increased
unemployment and runaway inflation.
A national security and intelligence review board led by Khamenei’s
son Mojtaba and his chief of staff, Akbar Hejazi, is looking at Iran’s
nuclear face-off with the international community and its aggressive
posture in Iraq.
According to Iranian exiles who have been following these events
closely, a rift has developed between Ahmadinejad and senior
Revolutionary Guards “professionals,” who believe the
President’s overheated rhetoric and behavior is endangering the
survival of the regime.
“It’s not that these professionals want to make peace
with America and sing Kumbaya with the opposition,” said
Shahriar Ahy. “Rather, they feel that Ahmadinejad has brought
in undisciplined amateurs who are riding roughshod” over their
agencies and “destroying all the work” the professionals
have accomplished over the past twenty years.
Tehran’s reaction to the more forceful U.S. policy in Iraq
gives the lie to the U.S. politicians and analysts who have been
arguing that the United States must talk to Tehran.
In fact, it shows they were completely wrong.
Council on Foreign Relations Iran “expert” Ray Takeyh,
Washington Post reporter Robin Wright, and pro-regime lobbyist
Housang Amirahmadi have been saying for years that pressure on the
regime in Tehran will be counterproductive, because it will unite the
people behind the regime.
“They have even argued against using coercive diplomacy,”
says Iran analyst Hassan Daioleslam.
But Daioleslam and others believe recent events have shown just the
contrary. When the U.S. squeezes the Tehran regime, they retreat.
“Coercive measures work against Iran. They worked in 1988 at
the end of the war with Iraq, and they worked again in 1996 when
Europe and the United States took a hard stance against Iran. The
hard-liners only got strong when the West was soft with them,”
he says.
A strong faction has emerged in Congress arguing for the United
States to “go soft” toward Iran once again. Among the
best known advocates of this policy are Sen. Joe Biden, Sen. John
Kerry, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Sen. Chuck Hagel.
But Daioleslam says the “pro-Iranians are wrong because they
base their policy on two false assumptions: first, that the people of
Iran support the regime. Second, that the factions are united. Both
assumptions are just plain wrong as any reader who opens an Iranian
newspaper can see immediately.”
The Tehran regime understands the stakes in Iraq very well.
Former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, now a top advisor to the
Supreme Leader, told the Iranian Student News Agency in August 2004: “What
is happening in Iraq today will affect the whole region. If the Iraqi
people resist and finally force the invaders to leave Iraq, that
could become a model for the entire world because the Moslems will
see that they could defeat the aggressors.”
Conversely, he argued, an American victory in Iraq could be fatal to
the Islamic regime in Tehran.
As the insurgency deepened last year, Iranian Majles member Mojtaba
Nia noted, “Every car exploded in Iraq will delay a month the
American plot against us.”
Now we need to squeeze harder. It’s time for the U.S. Cobra to
strike at the heart of the Iranian terror networks in Iraq, and shut
down their supply lines once and for all.
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