Iran's cautious tactics

[Marvin Gandall <marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Kaveh L. Afrasiabi in today’s Asia Times examines whether Iran is
acquiescing in or subverting the US occupation of Iraq, and concludes it is
doing both in tandem in response to a complex and fluid situation.

On the one hand, the Iranians would like to see threatening US forces
expelled from the region. On the other, like Iraq’s supreme ayatollah Ali
Sistani, they are hoping the occupation will end peacefully and result in a
Shia-dominated state allied to Iran.

The uprising led by Muqtada al Sadr has sharpened the Iranians’ dilemma of
whether to support a nonviolent or armed struggle against the Americans.
Afrasiabi notes the regime is divided between the conservative clerics led
by Ali Khamenei who are sympathetic to the militant Islamists under Sadr,
while the liberal wing represented by president Mohammad Khatami has shunned
and criticized him.

But the Iranians, he suggests, now appear to be “tilting increasingly in his
direction irrespective of their minor misgivings about him” because of the
Sadrists’ unexpected success - a development which may underlie recent
American charges of Iranian “meddling”.

Asia Times URL: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FE20Ak01.html
Also: http://www.supportingfacts.com

Sorry for any cross posting.