Lagniappe

 

 

Scott Sulivan :
Congress will block Bush eEscalation in Iraq

 

 

With President Bush's prospective decision to install an Iran-friendly
government in Iraq under Abul Aziz al-Hakim, Bush is signaling that the US
Executive Branch will join the pro-Iran Axis in the Middle East (for more on
the Hakim-Iran connection, see below).

Bush is making a huge political miscalculation for two reasons.

First, the pro-Iran Axis will inevitably be defeated by the anti-Iran United
Front. Support for the anti-Iran United Front surged over the weekend. For
one thing, in a crucially important move, Russian president Vladimir Putin
announced Russia's support for the Siniora government in Lebanon and for the
international tribunal that will bring Hariri's assassins to justice.
Putin's announcement deals a major blow to Iran's efforts to annex Lebanon.
Another development that will turn the Middle East against Iran is the
assault by Hamas on the PLO. Long time supporters of the PLO, like Russia,
are not amused and tend to blame the Hamas problem on Iran and its imperial
ambitions.

In short, the anti-Iran United Front in the Middle East is growing and now
can be said to include Russia, Lebanon, the PLO, Muqtada al Sadr in Iraq,
and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Arab states.

In contrast, the pro-Iran Axis is not adding new members. The pro-Iran Axis
now includes only the US, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Hakim in Iraq. Moreover,
Syria, which is now supporting the pro-Iran front and whose support is
crucial to its success, may be up for grabs.

President Assad of Syria can apparently live with Hamas domination of the
Palestinian Authority and Hezbollah domination of Lebanon. Assad will
likely draw the line, however, at Iran's domination of Iraq via installation
of a Hakim government, as urged by the US. If Hakim takes power in Iraq,
Syria would find itself surrounded by Iran's allies - Hamas, Hezbollah, and
Hakim's Iraq -- while alienated from the Sunni states, Syria's traditional
allies.

Moreover, due to Iran's Nazi expansionist ambitions, Syria could face a
destabilized PA, Lebanon, and Iraq. At that point, Syria would be in
crisis due to refugee flows and Israeli military attacks, while Iran - the
primary instigator of regional instability -- would remain safely on the
sidelines.

The point is that Syria would soon resent paying for Iran's sins and could
turn against Iran, thus collapsing the entire pro-Iran Axis. President
Assad will be in Moscow for talks on 18 December.

Again, Bush's first mistake in supporting Iran is that he is supporting the
losing side in the Middle East, especially if Syria turns against Iran.
Bush's second mistake is that he is underestimating the power of the Joint
Staff and the Congress, especially if they cooperate, to block a pro-Iran
position by the US, especially in Iraq.

Unlike the Bush Administration, the Joint Staff and Congress have absolutely
no desire to see a US military escalation in Iraq. This is especially true
if Bush's goal is to unseat the Maliki-Sadrr government and replace it with
a government that is loyal to Iran, under Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.

More likely than approval is action by the Joint Staff and Congress to block
Bush's pro-Iran, pro-Hakim initiatives in Iraq. In this instance, Iran's
loss of support from Syria and the US, which is now all but inevitable,
would ring down the final curtain on Ahmadinejad and his Nazi empire.

 

SmallGovTimes.com
Sciri and Hakim are part of Iraqi problem, not part of the solution

By: Alan Miladi | Published on 12/15/06

In search of stability in Iraq, the Bush administration is searching high
and low for any allies that could possibly alleviate the continuing
disintegration in Iraq.

One strange partner the U.S. has been courting lately is a group called
"Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq" (SCIRI), headed by a
mullah named Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Hakim is claimed to be a Shiite leader who
favors a political process in Iraq, and who, with his group, could
counterbalance the threat posed by the Mehdi Army of firebrand Shiite cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr.

Nothing could be further from reality. SCIRI was formed in 1981 by Ayatollah
Khomeini, who two years earlier has led the revolution that overthrew the
Shah of Iran. Ali Khamenei, now Iran's supreme leader, was given the task of
drafting its constitution. The prime objective of the group was to establish
an Islamic Republic in Iraq.

Khomeini originally appointed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, currently the chief
of Iran's judiciary, as the first chairman of the SCIRI, and Baqer Hakim,
the elder brother of Abdul Aziz (the fellow who met President Bush in the
Oval Office the other day) as its spokesman. Mohammed Baqer died in a deadly
bomb blast in August 2003 in the Iraqi city of Najaf and Abdul Aziz
subsequently took control of the SCIRI. Hakim takes his orders directly from
Khamenei and implements them.

SCIRI's military, the Badr Corps, was formed by the Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps (IRGC) during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. In reality, it
constituted the biggest section of the Qods Force, the branch of the IRGC
responsible for the Iranian regime's meddling in other countries. Members of
the Badr Corps are still on the IRGC payroll and are covered by the same
administrative and employment regulations as the IRGC. According to reliable
information, some of the salary comes directly from the Qods Force through
Sepah Bank, which is run exclusively by the IRGC.

After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, SCIRI members, who had been preparing
for months, poured into Iraq from the north, south, and center, to seize
towns and government buildings. This was despite assurances that the Iranian
officials had provided to their American counterparts in their secret
negotiations in the months before the war to keep the border closed and not
intervene in Iraqi affairs.

Guided by senior commanders of the IRGC, who accompanied them into Iraq, the
SCIRI members set up terror cells throughout the nation. As part of Tehran's
strategy to establish a satellite Islamic Republic in Iraq, they infiltrated
Iraqi intelligence and security apparatus, in particular at the Interior
Ministry. As such, the SCIRI not only kept its militia intact, but also
disguised it under the cloak of the new Iraqi government. During the past
three years, SCIRI commanders have traveled frequently to Iranian cities to
meet with top IRGC commanders to coordinate their activities in fomenting
unrest among Iraq's ethnically-divided population.

According to U.S. military intelligence, the IRGC runs a broad-based heavily
funded insurgency, with the sole purpose of killing U.S.-led forces. General
George W. Casey, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said recently, "A
lot of their guys (Badr) are going into the police and military."

In November 2005, U.S. forces raided a secret detention center, run by the
Interior Ministry in the Jadriya neighborhood of Baghdad, where at least 200
predominantly Sunni prisoners were being tortured. Police sources told the
Times of London that the Jadriya facility was being run by the Badr Corps as
its own personal militia jail. Since then, dozens of similar torture centers
have been discovered.

The Interior Ministry, controlled by Shiite militia forces of the Badr
Corps, has been accused repeatedly of using its security forces to detain,
torture, and kill hundreds of its opponents. The Badr militia also is
believed to be behind many of the kidnappings and execution-style killings
of ordinary Iraqis and political figures opposed to the establishment of a
government based on Iran's theocratic model.

On the political end, Hakim, who personally supervises the Badr activities,
has been pushing for an autonomous Shiite region comprising Iraq's nine
oil-rich southern provinces, a trick to give the Iranian regime de facto
control over the south of Iraq.

While in Washington, Hakim urged stronger attacks by the U.S. forces against
his rivals, which would simply set the stage for his militia to take full
control of Iraq.

If one is serious about establishing order in Iraq, there can be no escaping
the mandate to dissolve the Badr Corps. By doing so, the U.S. will
accomplish a twofold purpose: It will eliminate a major militia force that
is one of the main sources of violence in Iraq, and it will deliver a
significant blow to Iranian meddling in Iraq .

Let's face it: the Iraq crisis is deepening every day. The U.S. needs real
allies more than ever-and SCIRI and Hakim are anything but. If Washington is
interested in offering Iraq on a silver platter to extremist, blood-drenched
Iranian mullahs, it should keep dealing with Hakim.

If it wants any chance to achieve even a part of its goal in Iraq, it must
disassociate itself from Hakim and his types-and do so quickly.

Original URL:
http://www.smallgovtimes.com/story/06dec15.sciri.hakim.problem/index.html

Scott Sullivan is a former Washington government employee. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

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Petroleumworld News 12/18/06

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