February 23, 2007	Friday	Safar 5, 1428

BAGHDAD, Feb 22: Even as the US works to crack down on Iran’s role here, it’s becoming clear that the US-backed Iraqi government holds a vision of Iraq’s future that is closer – in key ways – to Tehran than Washington.

It’s also increasingly apparent that Tehran is backing some of the same Iraqi groups the United States favours.

That means America may be doomed to fail in its efforts to curb Iran’s influence in Iraq, simply because its own allies here – both Shia and Kurdish – are warm toward Tehran’s role.

“In both countries, there is now a desire to move away from what was seen as an artificial iron curtain during the time of Saddam Hussein,” said Reidar Visser, a Middle East expert at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

Overall, the US wants an Iraq where various groups, including Sunnis and Kurds, share power with the Shia majority. It sees that as the only way to gain stability.

But Iraq’s Shia political leaders – and their long-time friend, Iran – want Shia to maintain firm control in Iraq, with the Sunnis playing a role well below their dominant pre-war position.

US officials do acknowledge that Iran has legitimate interests in Iraq, including stopping any fresh outbreaks of full scale war.

But US officials have been harshly critical of alleged Iranian efforts to supply weapons to Shia groups in Iraq, including Shia extremists. The Americans say those weapons are being used to kill Americans and are threatening stability here. Iran has denied the allegations.

The difference between American and Iraqi views about Iran’s role is perhaps most stark in the case of the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

To the Americans and to Iraqi Sunnis, al-Sadr is a threat to national reconciliation. To al-Maliki – and the Iranians – the young cleric is an ally whose widespread support among Shiite masses cannot be discounted.

Iraqi Shia leaders need al-Sadr’s followers to maintain Shia power once the Americans have gone. And Iran, interested in the same outcome, seems to have made the same calculation.

The issue has produced strains between the US and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government, which is resisting US pressure to crack down on Sadr City, the stronghold of al-Sadr’s militia.

Some Iraqi leaders think the American insistence on an al-Sadr crackdown means the United States is primarily interested in curbing Iran’s regional influence, even if it complicates the fight against Sunni insurgents.

“The question is, ‘Why is the US going after the Mahdi Army when most of the attacks on US and civilians are coming from the (Sunni) insurgents?’” said Vali Nasr, a professor at the US Naval Postgraduate School. '”It seems that US concern is with Iran and its regional influence – above and beyond Iraq.”

But US officials say they have to stop the flow of Iranian arms to the Mahdi Army and others because those weapons are killing Americans. They believe Iran is the source of the deadly “explosively formed penetrators” that have killed more than 170 American and coalition soldiers since mid-2004.

Some analysts believe Iran’s main motive in delivering such weapons is to gain leverage with Shia factions and bolster the Shiites’ position against the Sunnis – even at the risk of more problems with the Americans.

To bolster the Shia, the Iranians need al-Sadr, even though his previous relationship with Tehran had never been that warm.

“Iran has come to see Muqtada al-Sadr as a growing force in Iraqi politics,” said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist for the Congressional Research Service in Washington.

Iran’s strategy so far “has been to build ties to al-Sadr and coax him into cooperating” with other Shia political parties in Iraq, “while indulging his requests for material assistance,” Katzman said.

The US focus on al-Sadr overlooks the fact that Iran has even deeper, stronger links to the very Shia and Kurdish parties the Americans consider their partners in Iraq.

Those include the Shia group Supreme Council for the Islamic Republic in Iraq, whose leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim has been welcomed in both Washington and Tehran, and the Dawa party of the prime minister. Both major Kurdish parties also have their own long-time ties to Iran.

In December, US troops detained two Iranian security officials in the home of a Shia politician associated with al-Hakim. Last month, six other Iranians were captured at an Iranian liaison office in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish self-ruled region.

“It is remarkable that even as the US military seems to spend a lot of energy trying to dig up detailed evidence” against al-Sadr, Washington is courting “the very Iraqi Shia faction that historically has enjoyed the strongest ties to Iran,” Visser said.—AP