Excessive power makes people blind. What they cannot see is not the reality that Iran is not Iraq. Of course, they are perfectly aware of this. What they cannot see is that if they irritate Iran further, they will face more problems in Iraq than they are facing today.
Iran is like an enticing beautiful lady who conquers the hearts of the conquerors. Jews, who never had been dissolved into any culture and civilization in history, were dissolved into Iran at such a period when they even had prophets among themselves. Alexander had to say, "I am Asian from now on," before the glory of Babylon. To a certain extent, the same things might fairly be said for the Islamic armies: Islam conquered Iran, however, the Iranian language, culture and art diffused into Islam's character.
How a United States, which did not study the mindset of 10 or 15 top-level ayatollahs while occupying Iraq, and could not gain an ally except Al-Hoy among them, and also lost him during the early days of the Iraqi occupation, will fight against the heart and mind resistance of thousands of ayatollahs? What did a United States, which did not study the social structure of Iraq, that is based on tribal dominance and excluded them, by treating all the tribes as al-Takarita, the common name given to Saddam's Tikritis and other tribes bound to them through marriages, do in the name of analyzing the social structure of Iran? Didn't they notice themselves that their attempts to organize revolts in Iranian streets recently all ended in naught?
Now they are transferring the Iraqi regime, established by themselves, to the Sistani-Shehristani-Al Hakim trio, with the excitement, "take Iraq and save us." Two of them are in fact Iranian and of Persian origin. When Ali Sistani was under house arrest in Necef (Najaf) during Saddam's rule, he transferred his power base to the Iranian city of Kum. After Shehristani was rescued from Saddam's Abu Ghraib [prison] in 1991, he went to teach at Tehran University. Al-Hakim lived in Tehran for many years and he considers setting up a regime in Iraq similar to the one Khomeini established in Iran as the purpose of his existence. All Shiite figures on Sistani's list are names who had connections with Iran at some point. Figures like Ahmad Chalabi, accused by the U. S. of being an Iranian spy, will be one of the ministers tomorrow.
Cheney's remark, "Israel might attack Iran before us," was uttered within this power blindness. This remark neither scares Iran, nor has it given Israel its green light through television screens, nor have European states supporting Iran's nuclear weapons program withdrawn their backing. Its only influence will be on the Iraqi people who will go to the polls on Sunday and on the Shiite majority Iraqi government that will be formed after the elections. Iraqi Shiites who did not want to be included in Iranian axis, might even strive for "solidarity with oppressed" Iran. Many Sunni groups, with the same feelings so far, and have announced their decision to boycott the elections, might even attempt to support Shiite lists in the polls.
It is known that Sistani wants the United States to leave the country after the elections. Concern that this departure will be extended, will change the election atmosphere at a period when Iran is clearly pinpointed as the target, hence, a request will be made to turn Iraq into a U. S. base. You should not be surprised if you hear Sistani's fatwa, [religious ruling in Islam], in the days ahead, stipulating a time restriction not exceeding a couple of months, for American troops to leave the country.
January 24, 2005
London
