TACIT UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN IRAN AND THE US OVER IRAQ
By Afsaneh Basirpoor
PARIS 28 Mar. (IPS) As the Americans try to keep the Iraqi Shi’ites at bay, and have called on the Iranians not to let the Iraqi exiles cross into the Iraqi territory, diplomats in the Iranian capital confirms confirm what the Iranians suspected since the beginning of the war: a tacit understanding between the United States and Iran, wrote the influential French daily "Le Monde".
"The American message to Tehran is simple, explains a Western ambassador: "Don't bother us and we won't intervene in your affairs". Iran acquiesces.
The government's spokesman, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh announced on Wednesday 26 March that Iran wouldn’t allow the present Shiite fighters on its soil to cross the border. "Until the end of the war, he has said, we won't permit any military activity in favour of either side of the conflict and our borders will remain closed".
Based in Iran and controlled by Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI), the main Shiite opposition organization, has trained in Iran the Badr Brigade, an army estimated by diplomats, of ten to fifteen thousand men.
Ayatollah Baqer al-Hakim, exiled since twenty years in Iran, had already announced on Tuesday 25 March in Tehran, that the United States had ordered the Brigade to remain aside from the conflict. "For the time being, the Americans don't want the intervention of the Shi’ites", explains an informed source. They prefer the technocrats living in West to the SAIRI and to its Iranian ally", he says.
"In its message to the Iraqi people, the Assembly extols an Iranian Islamic-type of system. Ayatollah Baqer al-Hakim exhorts them to establish the rules of the Shari’a", notes a diplomat. "Anyway, says a Western ambassador, it is not in the interest of Iran to mingle with the conflict".
Public declarations of the Iranians show that they have a lot to fear from the consequences of the war: the refugees, the impoverished uranium, the concern not to be able to participate in the redefinition of the Iraqi political card and, especially, the new reports of force created by the American domination in the region are parts of these fear". According to our interlocutor, "the Iranian establishment dreads that America turns around toward Iran after Iraq".
The coalition, for its part, has taken some measures to reassure Tehran. In an interview to "Le Monde" on Wednesday 26 March, the British ambassador in Iran, Richard Dalton, confirmed to have given some guarantees "personally" to the Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and to M. Hassan Rohnai, the Secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security, that "the People's Mojahedeen won't have any place anymore in Iraq".
The British Ambassador also assured to have taken "the Iranian complaints concerning the missiles fallen in two Iranian cities "very seriously".
The coalition, according to ambassador Dalton, "wants that the Iranians know that we don't want a conflict with Iran". Minimizing the fact that there is not a popular uprising in Iraq, the British diplomat estimates that it is "mad to say that the allies had failed because the Iraqi regime did not fall in one week". The coalition, he says, "is creating a situation allowing the Iraqis to not resist."
Also satisfied of the Anglo-American military progress in Iraq, a high-ranking member of the Iraqi Shiite opposition outside of Iran deplores the fact that the coalition has lost the war of the propaganda".
Speaking to Le Monde by telephone from south of Iraq, he foresees "the beginning of the popular uprising with the fall of the Iraqi radio and television". "For the time being, everything that the Iraqis see and hear comes them of the regime and this makes them to be frightened", he says.
It is for this reason that the decision of a popular uprising has not yet been taken because the American army is not yet seen as a victorious army. People don't yet trust it", he explains.
However, this source add, the leadership of the Iraqi opposition has already called on the population of Iraq to "to get ready for the uprising against Saddam Hoseyn and to join the ranks of the opponents. We are conscious that the moment would not last long..." ENDS IRAN US IRAQ 28303