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Jewish World Review April 25, 2003 / 23 Nisan, 5763
Michael Ledeen
Timing Is Everything: We have a narrow window in Iraq to win Shiite support
We have a very narrow window in Iraq to win the
support of the Shiite community, which constitutes a
majority of the Iraqi people. If we do not manage that in
the next month or two, the radical Iranian regime will
almost certainly succeed in its ambitious and, thus far,
brilliantly managed campaign to mobilize the Iraqi Shiites
to discredit the Coalition victory, demand an immediate
American withdrawal, and insist on "international" -
that is, U.N. and European - supervision of the
country. That would leave Iran with a free hand in Iraq,
strengthen the regime in Tehran to our detriment, and
give a second wind to the terror network. Our victory,
as the old saying goes, would turn to ashes in our
mouths.
Some of our leaders seemed surprised to discover that
both Iran and Syria were sending thousands of terrorists
into Iraq to attack Coalition forces, but there was no
reason for surprise. Both Bashar Assad in Damascus
and Ali Khamenei and his fanatical allies in Tehran had
publicly announced that America would sink into a
Vietnam-like quagmire in Iraq, and the long delay
between the end of the Afghan campaign and the onset
of the liberation of Iraq enabled the Iranians and Syrians
to plan their moves to best assure this outcome. The
Syrians have been caught red-handed, opening their
border with Iraq to terrorists moving East and weapons
and Baathist hierarchs fleeing West. As usual, the
Iranians have taken pains to cover their tracks. Even so,
there is plenty of reliable information about their
operations. In the middle of the war, for example, many
Iraqi leaders - reportedly more than a hundred in all
- made it by bus across the border to Iran, were
escorted onto a commercial aircraft, and were flown to
a safe haven in the Sudan.
But the true audacity of Tehran lies in their political
moves. The Iranians have infiltrated more than a
hundred highly trained Arab mullahs from Qom and
other Iranian religious centers into Iraq, especially to
Najaf and Karbala, the holy cities of the Shiite faith.
They are poisoning the minds of the (largely
uneducated) Iraqi mobs with a simple slogan, repeated
five times a day in the mosques: "America did it for the
Jews and for the oil." They are also distributing cash to
the Iraqis.
Just as they did against the shah, the Iranian Shiite leaders intend to build a
mass following, leading to an insurrection against us. Look carefully at the
banners carried by the Shiite demonstrators. They are very clean and well
produced, with slogans in both Arabic (for the Iraqis) and English (for
Western media). That is the Iranian regime at work, one of the most brilliant
and patient intelligence organizations in the region. The slogans chanted by the
mobs in Baghdad are Iranian slogans, calls for an Islamic state. It may seem
fanciful to suggest that our liberation of Iraq could be transformed into a
pro-Iranian regime applying sharia law, but after all just last year our
negotiators permitted the creation of an Islamic Republic in Afghanistan.
The Iranians will combine this political strategy with terrorist acts and
assassinations, as in the case of the very charismatic Ayatollah Khoi in Najaf.
He was a real threat to them, because of his personality and his solid
pro-Western views. So they killed him, and they are planning to kill others of
his ilk, along with as many Coalition soldiers as they can murder. Thousands
of Iranian-backed terrorists have been sent to Iraq, from Hezbollah killers to
the remnants of al Qaeda, from Islamic Jihadists to top Iranian Revolutionary
Guards fighters.
We have not taken suitable precautions against the infiltration of suicide
bombers and terrorists. The Associated Press reported on April 19th that -
there wasn't a single U.S. military checkpoint Friday along the length of the
50-mile road from the eastern city of Kut to the (Iranian) border - Iranian
border guards roamed freely to the Iraqi side, acting as if they were in charge
of the area and quickly asking reporters to leave.
We cannot defeat this strategy militarily without a level of violence against
civilians that would redound against us; we have to use their methods to
defeat them.
Our best strategy consists of two programs, one defensive and one offensive.
The first is to support pro-Western, pro-democracy mullahs in Najaf and
Karbala. They have sent a message to me (roughly two dozen of them),
offering to help us in exchange for physical protection and money to give as
charity to followers. Most Iraqi people do not like the Iranians, but only their
own religious leaders can credibly expose the Iranian operation. They will not
believe our radio or television broadcasts, or speeches from American
generals, but they will listen to their own religious leaders. Similarly, it is next
to impossible for us to identify the Iranian-backed terrorists, but the Iraqi
Shiites can do it, once they are convinced that their real salvation lies with us.
That is why the battle for the minds of the Iraqi Shiites is so crucial.
The second program is to support the anti-regime forces inside Iran. That
insane regime is now very frightened, both of us and of their own people. The
ayatollahs know that the Iranian people long to be free, and the regime has
intensified its repression during the run-up to the war. There are several
pro-democracy groups in Iran (student and teacher organizations, trade
unions, workers? group, especially in the oil and textile sectors) that can
organize an insurrection in Tehran and other major cities. They need money (a
fraction of what was squandered in the CIA's failed program to induce an
insurrection in Basra), satellite phones, laptop computers, and the like. At the
same time, we should support the pro-American Persian language radio and
TV stations in Los Angeles, that are the principal source of information for
most educated Iranians.
A thoughtful Turkish general once remarked that the trouble with allying with
the United States is that "you never know when the Americans are going to
turn around and stab themselves in the back." We have won a dazzling
military battle, but victory in the war against terrorism is suddenly in peril. We
can certainly win, but we are up against a desperate enemy with great skill
and cunning, and the cynical ruthlessness that comes from an ancient
civilization that has survived countless invaders and occupiers over many
millennia. We'd better take them seriously.
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04/15/03: Political war can remove terror masters in Syria and Iran
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