Handshakes with the Enemy
- 03.13.2008 - 6:10 PMAbe already blogged about this, but I wanted to follow up on Diana West’s fretting in the Washington Times about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent trip to Iraq, where he was supposedly given a warm reception by the Baghdad government. “[O]ur Iraqi allies have welcomed our Iranian enemies right into it.” Not so fast. Iraq and Iran are two Shia-majority countries. They share a long border and a terrible history, as Abe pointed out. They should be expected to have relations of some kind, and the more civil the better considering the depth of hatred Iranian Persians and Iraqi Arabs have for each other. Another full-blown war between Iraq and Iran is in the interests of no one.
In any case, a meeting, a few agreements, and a photo op don’t make these two countries an axis. Iran supports insurgents that for years have been trying to destroy the Baghdad government using terrorism, guerilla warfare, assassination, and sabotage. Who can seriously believe after all this–not to mention the centuries of conflict that preceded it–that the two governments actually like each other? Baghdad may formally welcome Ahmadinejad, but certainly not his proxy armies.
But let’s put that aside for the sake or argument and assume Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki may be a quiet Iranian sympathizer. What about Iraq’s president?
“Mr. Ahmadinejad was greeted with multiple kisses from Iraqi President Jalal Talabani,” West notes before saying “Blech.” Talabani is not only Iraq’s president. He is also the political leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the staunchly secular leftist political party with its home base in the Kurdish city of Suleimaniya. The PUK provides funds and materials to at least two exiled Kurdish Iranian political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan whose explicit goal is the destruction of the Islamic Republic regime in Tehran. Each of these parties has their own private army. One crossed into Iran recently and fought the regime in the streets during an uprising in the city of Mahabad. The idea that the secular, leftist, and Kurdish Jalal Talabani supports the theocratic, rightist, and Persian Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while at the same time funding and supplying revolutionaries who cross the border, doesn’t make sense.
If you want to know the truth, pay close attention to what Middle Easterners do, not what they say. At least some elements in each of these governments hope to remove the other from power by force. Their making nice in front of the cameras is no more meaningful than Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat shaking Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s hand on the White House lawn.
Middle Eastern leaders go through the motions of being nice to each other all the time when what they’d really like to do is pull out a dagger. Last May, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said the international tribunal to try the killers of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is not directed at “sister Syria.” Of course he doesn’t believe that, but that’s diplomacy for you. Almost everyone in Lebanon knows the Syrian regime was complicit in Hariri’s murder, as well as the murders that have picked off Siniora’s allies in parliament and the media one by one ever since.
I rented an apartment just around the corner from Siniora’s residence in Beirut, and I couldn’t walk anywhere near his house while using my cell phone. The signals are jammed. Cell phones can detonate car bombs. Siniora knows very well that he might be next and doesn’t think of Syria as anything like a brother or sister–at least not while the murderous Assad regime is in power.
In From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas Friedman tells the story of Christian militia leader Camille Chamoun receiving flowers from his arch enemy Yasser Arafat while he was laid up in the hospital. During this time they both hoped to kill each other. “These two men,” Friedman wrote, “had sent so many young men to die in defense of their own personal power and status, and now they were sending bouquets. That was Beirut.”
It is not just Beirut. It is the whole Middle East where smoke, mirrors, and false friendships are normal.
Diana West correctly notes that some Middle Eastern leaders claim to be American allies while fomenting jihad. Well, yes. Of course. They do the same thing to each other.
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March 13th, 2008 at 6:18 PM
You have nothing but speculation about what al maliki “really” thinks or what was “actually going on” that wasn’t said.
“Diana West correctly notes that some Middle Eastern leaders claim to be American allies while fomenting jihad.
so you acknowledge bush’s photo ops are meaningless?
you’re right, what people do IS more important than what they say. forget the leaders, Iranian and most shia iraqi PEOPLE are on the same side. Iranian tourists aren’t flocking to the Unites States to see shia shrines. the friendship of the iraqi and iranians is demonstratable outside of these photo ops. the same cannot be said for america and any of our so called allies (and especially not the people)
March 13th, 2008 at 7:39 PM
Some Westerners take the advice of Martin Luther who taught that you should rarely lie—but you should do so boldly if it’s required. It is deemed moral only in exceptional cases. This is not, however, the mindset within the cultures of the Middle East. On the contrary, lying is considered almost an art form, if not even a moral duty in everyday life. And this is particularly true, if one is deceiving a perceived enemy and outsider to the immediate community.
March 13th, 2008 at 7:56 PM
It’s also, to an extent, just run of the mill diplomacy. We pretend to like the Saudis, they pretend to like us, and we don’t fight. This sort of thing is not always wise, but it’s probably just as unwise to never do it at all.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:55 PM
It’s true that lying is an accepted cultural and religious norm in that part of the world. Those people do indeed have issues.
So do their allies over here. Just ask “Lester.”
March 13th, 2008 at 10:37 PM
I think Ms. Diana West is wrong and got pretty much emotional about the trip…
March 13th, 2008 at 11:22 PM
I don’t think anybody has mentioned the possibility that A’jad was attempting (with what success I don’t know) to appeal to Iraqi Shias over the heads of Iraqi politicians. (I’m reminded a little of De Gaulle’s 1967 [?] trip to Quebec.) If that was the case, the object was less to secure photo-ops than to intimidate the Iraqi and US governments. Additionally, A’jad probably wanted to beef up his sagging domestic Iranian prestige by making the grand tour of Iraq. (To that extent I’m reminded of Nixon ‘74.)
March 14th, 2008 at 12:34 AM
It’s worth noting that reports of the actual reception of A-jad in Iraq ran directly counter to West’s customary alarmism and negativism, as well as to the photo ops. A-jad was denied a much-desired meeting with Sistani, and was precluded from visiting many spots due to public protests, which were said to be large and in multiple locations. Not having been there myself, I can’t of course confirm that Amir Taheri, for example, is right and that she is wrong, but he based his opinions on what appears to be detailed on the ground reporting, where as she seemed to base her reaction on propaganda mediated by the news networks.
See A-JAD’S ENDLESS IRAQ DEBACLE: http://www.nypost.com/seven/03082008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/ajads_endless_iraq_debacle_100962.htm
March 14th, 2008 at 1:50 AM
It’s also, to an extent, just run of the mill diplomacy. We pretend to like the Saudis, they pretend to like us, and we don’t fight. This sort of thing is not always wise, but it’s probably just as unwise to never do it at all.
We pretend to like the saudis and feed them weapons and money for their oil, money with which they buy sections of our economy. they pretend to like us and feed us mosques, CAIR and jihadis. we don’t fight them, but they do.
and this is supposed to be wise?
March 14th, 2008 at 2:12 AM
oao,
No, I think Saudi Arabia is a case where it’s stupid.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:13 AM
It has long been clear that only Iran has gained from the Bush fiasco in Iraq. Bush and McCain both say: Let’s spill more American blood and treasure for the absurd idea that Arabs are capable of democracy. Enough of this scandal. Out of Iraq now!