Today the Washington Post makes a front page observation that the recent congressional testimonies of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker made little mention of al Qaeda in Iraq.
During their Washington visit, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker barely mentioned al-Qaeda in Iraq but spoke extensively of Iran.
With "al-Qaeda in retreat and disarray" in Iraq, said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, "we see other obstacles that were under the waterline more clearly. . . . The Iranian-armed militias are now the biggest threat to internal order."
Partly in response to advice from Petraeus and Crocker, the administration has initiated an interagency assessment of what is known about Iranian activities and intentions, how to combat them and how to capitalize on them. The review stems from an internal conclusion, following last week's fighting, that the administration lacked a comprehensive understanding and a sophisticated approach.
Anonymous U.S. officials say Maliki's offensive against Sadr's militia revealed both threat and opportunity. They say weaponry used in Basra and in the recent rocket attacks against the Green Zone in Baghdad came from Iran. They also say, according to Post, that an improvement in the performance of Sadr's militia indicates stepped-up Iranian training.
Interrogations of four leaders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force captured in Iraq in December 2006 and January 2007 have also bolstered U.S. conclusions that portions of Sadr's militia are directed from Tehran.
Despite earlier indications that Iranian backing for Iraqi armed groups and the flow of Iranian arms have waned, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that "this action in Basra was very convincing that indeed they haven't." Basra "gave us much more insight into their involvement in many activities."
The opportunity that arises from this is on the diplomatic front. When Maliki went after Sadr's Shiite militia he gained gained some support from Sunni and Kurd political groups in Iraq, who had been suspicious that the Shiite al Maliki would dominate the Iraqi al Maliki in policy matters. Added support on the home front could begin to translate into credibility among Arab governments in the region that have thus far shunned the Maliki government.
The administration has long tried in vain to build Arab diplomatic and economic support for the Iraqi government. But the Arabs, led by Saudi Arabia, consider Shiite Iran a competitor for regional dominance and have rejected Maliki as "a stooge for Tehran," as one U.S. official called him...
...After consultations with Crocker and Petraeus this week, Bush cut short their Washington visit and dispatched them to Riyadh. During a luncheon at The Washington Post, Crocker said that at a White House meeting Thursday morning, they "reviewed where we are in Iraq."
The message to the Saudis, he said, "is going to be . . . it is time, more than time, for the Arab states to step forward and engage constructively with Iraq. Get their embassies open, get ambassadors on the ground, consider visits, implement debt relief, treat Iraq like the country it is, which is a central part of the Arab world."
We shall wait and see if Arab religious distrust overwhelms political opportunity. The decline of al Qaeda may possibly provide a little breathing room for Arab despots who use the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in the words of Fouad Ajami, "in the hope of tranquilizing their own domains and buying off the embittered in their midst."
What will the establishment of a stable and democratic Iraq mean for the Middle East? If, as Michael Doran said in Foreign Affairs in 2003, the road to a calmer situation in Palestine runs through Baghdad, it may mean there are finally real chances for peace in the Middle East. Before the the Sunni dominated Arab governments in the region bring themselves to recognize Israel, they will first be urged to recognize the Shiite led government in Iraq.
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