Recently, I’ve seen some suggestions that the US should step back and allow the regional powers of the Mid-East help Iraq settle their own problems. Surely the people of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia have more of a vested interest as well as a better cultural understanding to do this, don’t they?
Well, no, they don’t. In fact it is in their interest to keep Iraq weak and in conflict. For one, if democracy takes hold in Iraq, their own populations may desire the same freedoms, economic success and luxuries that they would see across the border in Iraq. For another, the Iraqi people are traditional enemies of some of these countries. Further they are religious enemies of others.
Let’s look at the most obvious player first: Iran. It is a very theocratic government that rules its people under Sharia law. Women must cover their hair. Honor killings are part of life. (An honor killing is when a male family member kills a woman for sex with a man other than her husband, whether or not she is married. It can be for a lesser offense.) Iranians are primarily Shi’a and non-Arab. As Persians, they are regarded as lesser muslims, despite the Koran specifying that all muslims are equal.
But if the Iraqi’s have a Shi’a majority, wouldn’t that make it a potential ally? Yes, it would but one must also recall that the Shi’a have roots in Iraq and that the Iraqis as Arabs would consider themselves closer to the ‘real Shi’a’ than their Persian neighbors.
What then has been the role of the Iranians in Iraq? They have in fact primarily backed the Shi’a militias including the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Militia. They have however also provided munitions to the Sunni’s. When Iran made it known that they favored a different radical Shi’a, al-Sadr called for a cease fire with the Iraqi and Coalition Forces. The splinter group Special Groups became the outlet for Iranian export of terrorism. It is a direct relation to Hezbollah and has even used the Hezbollah name.
Their goal is to keep Iraq unstable but to give the most assistance to their favorite dog in the fight, the Shi’a. Evidence of this is readily available and includes the use of a particularly nasty IED that takes much more precision to build than is commonly available inside Iraq, due to the active hostilities. Further, other munitions have been tracked back to Iranian government sources.
They also appreciate the fact that the hostilities are keeping the US busy and fully endorse the political pressure inside the US for retreat. It keeps the pressure off them by keeping things busy in Iraq.
The next most notorious player is Syria. It is ruled by a minority religious sect (Alawite) with very secretive practices and uses the political officer style created by the Soviet Union to keep its military in check. It is 74% Sunni. As its leadership belongs to a minority it expresses fears over the Sunni majority and while it has stamped out the “Muslim Brotherhood” in its own country through extreme means including the complete annihilation of an ancient city, it has been proven to support terrorism in other countries as a means to de-stabilize them in perpetuity.
The easiest places to demonstrate that technique are Lebanon, Palestine and Israel, where it actively sponsors various terrorist groups that are at odds with each other. With its Sunni based population, it is a more likely sponsor of Al-Qaeda than is Iran. However with the threat posed by the “Muslim Brotherhood” and their kinship to Al-Qaeda, it will continue to maintain a certain distance from them. In fact, Syria is and has been the primary transit point for Al-Qaeda going to Iraq.
On the other hand, they have a proven record of support of both organizations so long as the organization stays out of their own country. It should also be noted that their political leadership belongs to the Ba’ath party, which is the same brutal party as Saddam ran in Iraq. Even at that though, the Syrians allied themselves with the Coalition during Desert Storm and gave refuge to more than one family member and others that fled from Saddam.
Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey all have a Kurdish minority and all have expressed concerns over the Kurds gaining political clout. The Kurds have long pushed for establishment of their own country which would be at odds with the others as well as attempt to gain territory to establish or gain land from the others. This issue is of great concern to all the nations named as the land the Kurds occupy is some of the richest in oil.
Hence Turkey has serious concerns over the clout that the Kurds have gained in Iraq. The Kurds have gained this by merely sitting back and watching the fighting, for the most part. There is some reason to believe though that the Kurds have in turn provided support for their cousins in the other countries mentioned. Turkey in particular has expressed this concern and that was probably a primary reason that Turkey was not more supportive of the current war in Iraq.
And then there is our ally, Saudi Arabia. Often the target of criticism in American circles, it is very misunderstood and in a very precarious situation. First, the Saud Family is the target of both American criticism and Al-Qaeda threats. It is the Saud Family that OBL has had the greatest issue with, at least as far as internal to the Middle East is concerned. He repeatedly called for the overthrow of that government.
Al-Qaeda is based in a Sunni sect called Wahhabism. This also happens to be the primary sect in Saudi Arabia and hence gathers considerable support from the people there. The Saud family long ago made a deal with the devil if you will with the Wahhabis. The deal dictated that the Wahhabis would run internal affairs and the Saud Family would run external affairs.
Further, the Saud Family is threatened internally by pressures for both greater democracy and for greater control by the Wahhabis. The possibility of democracy on their border does little to inspire confidence but neither does the government wish for greater religious fanaticism within its borders.
They have aggressively moved to curb Al-Qaeda within their borders due to violence against them. They are less inclined to move against it outside areas of their control and seem to placate it through the funding of Wahhabi based Madrassas (religious schools) in poorer islamic countries. Al-Qaeda in turn uses these schools to preach hatred and have even used them for the recruitment and training of terrorists. Alas, Saudi Arabia is such a complex issue that it merits an article of its own and eventually I’ll return to it.
For now, I will merely point out that the continued existence of Saudi citizens in Al-Qaeda is a near given, even though the Government itself is working against the terrorist organization to the extent it feels that it can.
The ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ also deserves an article of its own. For now, realize that it is a very large organization with many members also members of many other terrorists organizations. It is also a very secretive organization, which similar to Hamas or Hezbollah has both political and militant arms, as well as charity arms. And it has ties to all organizations mentioned.
One should come away from this analysis with the realization that there really is no nation in the Middle East that sees a strong democratic Iraq as in their own interests. There is plenty of proof that Syria and Iran have both actively played both militia sides in the current Iraq war in order to keep that country in turmoil. The Middle East is a very complex place where the enemy of an enemy is a friend. This is often a reason that they support two enemies to fight each other as is being seen there now.
War on Terror News©2007-2010, ARM, all rights reserved, http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/
Stumble It!
