Re: [A-List] Middle East intrigue

["Annewilliamson" <Annewilliamson@xxxxxxx>]

Iran starts to see benefit of deal with the devil
the scotsman ^ | 9/30/02 | BORZOU DARAGAHI


IN PUBLIC, the Islamic Republic of Iran has scowled at the United States'
apparent plans to overthrow the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein.

However, a delegation of Iraqi Kurds who travelled to Iran over the past
couple of weeks found that even Iran's most traditionally anti-US
institutions have accepted and acceded to the possibility of a regime change
in Baghdad.

Indeed, they appeared to relish the prospect of an end to President Saddam,
who initiated a devastating eight-year war with Iran in 1980.

"The Iranians have some concerns about the post-Saddam Iraq, what kind of
Iraq there would be, and the legality of removing a sovereign regime," said
Hosyar Zebari, a top-level Kurdish official.

His delegation held meetings last week with the powerful former president,
Hashemi Rafsanjani, as well as the head of Iran's ultra-conservative
Revolutionary Guards and the ministers of defence and intelligence. "But
deep down they really they want a change a of regime in Iraq. They want to
see the back of Saddam Hussein," Mr Zebari said.

US troop deployments and President George Bush's vows to replace President
Saddam's government have placed the region on edge.

Governments and political groups in the region have been in a flurry of
diplomatic haggling and military planning. Here in northern Iraq - a
semiautonomous US and United Nations protected area - fears of war and
instability loom especially large.

The mountain-top town of Salahuddin, just north of the major city of Erbil,
is where Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two major
groups governing Iraqi Kurdistan, has been busy preparing for a 4 October
parliamentary meeting and wrestling with the implications of a post-Saddam
Iraq.

The Kurds were once fierce guerrillas. But they have lately laid down their
arms, put on suits and ties and engaged in politics to ease their neighbours
' fears about a new Iraqi government. Relations between Turkey, and the two
Kurdish political camps governing northern Iraq nearly collapsed after two
members of the Ankara government publicly suggested annexing this part of
Iraq. Mr Zebari says he is heading to Turkey next. "We're trying cool to the
atmosphere and tone done the media threats."

Mr Bush's 12 September speech at the United Nations, in which he referred
four times to the Iranians as victims of President Saddam, did much to ease
Iranian fears that US plans to attack Iran following an elimination of the
Baghdad regime, Mr Zebari said. Iran leaders welcomed Mr Bush's remarks as a
conciliatory gesture, he added.

Iran's approval or at least acquiescence in an overthrow of the Iraqi regime
is vital. The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, is due in Iran to discuss the
Iraqi question in the second week in October. In a telephone conversation
with the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, last week, Iran's president,
Mohammad Khatami, said any action against the Iraq must be carried out under
the UN flag.

Iran and the United States cut ties following the 1979 seizure of the US
embassy in Tehran. But the clerical regime of Iran is also no friend of the
Baghdad government, which used chemical weapons against its soldiers at the
end of a long war in the 1980s. Iran quietly sat out the 1991 US-led
campaign to push Iraq out of Kuwait.

But its border and ethnic ties with Afghans have complicated the US drive to
create a post-Taleban peace in Afghanistan. In the same way Iran can throw
spanners in any plan to create a new Iraq. Iran's 1,200-mile frontier with
Iraq is the longest of any country bordering Iraq. In contrast to other
countries surrounding Iraq, Iran has poor relations with Baghdad but strong
ties to President Saddam's domestic enemies.

Some 90 per cent of Iranians follow the Shiite Muslim sect, giving them
strong ties to Iraq's Shiites, who make up 60 per cent of Iraqis.

Iran also has strong ties to the Kurdish Iraqi groups. Iran has provided
shelter for the Iraqi Kurds numerous times throughout the 20th century, most
recently following President Saddam's brutal suppression of a 1991 uprising.

Eight million Kurds live throughout Iran, where their distinctive dance,
music and dress are officially recognised as one of the nation's traditional
cultures.

The 3.5 million Kurds and majority Shiites of Iraq will likely make up
important components of the Iraqi federation sketched by opposition groups
in Washington last summer. Mr Zebari said the Kurdish delegation, headed by
the nominal Kurdish co-prime minister, Nejivan Barzani, wanted to make sure
Iran was on board.

The delegation spoke extensively with Mr Rafsanjani, the former president of
Iran who heads the powerful Expediency Council and wields enormous influence
in the republic's complicated government.

"This wasn't a diplomatic exercise," Mr Zebari said. "This was hard
politics. We talked to the doers. Not to the lawyers and diplomats."

Mr Zebari said the Iranians seemed especially curious about what the
Americans were saying about Iran during the meeting in Washington. "We very
frankly and openly related to them the aims of the United States. The aim is
to make the Iraqi people free, not to occupy Iraq. They would like the
neighbouring countries to assist."

Mr Zebari said the Iranians have been quietly and subtly helping Washington'
s war efforts. During the Tehran meetings, Iran agreed to streamline trade
routes to northern Iraq, whose people fear it will be cut off from energy
and trade in the event of a long war. Over the past few weeks, Iran's
Revolutionary Guards have increased their presence on the Iraqi border and
set up refugee camps.

A leader of an Iraqi Muslim extremist group was arrested at Tehran's
Mehrabad airport and sent to Holland. "These are all added pressures on
Saddam."