Charles Sheehan-Miles

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Secret Plan for Iranian offensive in Iraq?

According to The Guardian, Iran is quietly making moves for a major offensive in Iraq this summer, designed to force a speedy U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.

On reading this, my first question was who are the U.S. officials, and what are the odds this is more drumbeating from the administration against Iran. After all, Shia Iran and al-Qaida are hardly allies. On the other hand, they say that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The bad news: if Iran seriously worked to get us out of Iraq, they could challenge us in ways we haven't seen yet. Virtually all of the logistics for the U.S. presence in Iraq flows through Kuwait and the Persian Gulf -- surface traffic that thus far hasn't had any difficulty getting through. A real war with Iran could potentially halt shipping in the Persian Gulf, or at least make it much more difficult. Picture escort convoys for every ship, much like the 1980s.

This scenario seems less likely, however, that the much more feasible (for Iran) possibility of simply fomenting massive unrest in Iraq. Pour in money and weapons and fighters and our position on the ground in Iraq could quickly become untenable, given the small numbers of troops we have on the ground there. Think its hard to provide security when there are ten or twenty thousand insurgents in the country? It could get a lot worse.

One final quote:

But if Iran succeeded in "prematurely" driving US and British forces out of Iraq, the likely result would be a "colossal humanitarian disaster" and possible regional war drawing in the Sunni Arab Gulf states, Syria and Turkey, he said.

 

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