www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21679-2005Feb13.html
All RSS Feeds Analysis Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of US Vision By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, February 14, 2005; Page A08 When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it env isioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government th at would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foi l to Tehran's regional ambitions. But, in one of the greatest ironies of the US intervention, Iraqis inst ead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious b ase -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $3 00 billion and counting, US and regional analysts say. Adnan Pachachi's US-backed party fared poorly in the election.
Sign Up Now Yesterday, the White House heralded the election and credited the US ro le. In a statement, President Bush praised Iraqis "for defying terrorist threats and setting their country on the path of democracy and freedom. And I congratulate every candidate who stood for election and those who will take office once the results are certified." Yet the top two winning parties -- which together won more than 70 percen t of the vote and are expected to name Iraq's new prime minister and pre sident -- are Iran's closest allies in Iraq. Thousands of members of the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite-dominated sla te that won almost half of the 85 million votes and will name the prime minister, spent decades in exile in Iran. Most of the militia members i n its largest faction were trained in Shiite-dominated Iran. And the winning Kurdish alliance, whose co-leader Jalal Talabani is the t op nominee for president, has roots in a province abutting Iran, which l ong served as its economic and political lifeline. "This is a government that will have very good relations with Iran. Talabani is very close to Teh ran," said Juan Cole, a University of Michigan expert on Iraq. "In terms of regional geopolitics, this is not the outcome that the United States was hoping for." Added Rami Khouri, Arab analyst and editor of Beirut's Daily Star: "The i dea that the United States would get a quick, stable, prosperous, pro-Am erican and pro-Israel Iraq has not happened. Most of the neoconservative assumptions about what would happen have proven false." For decades, both Republican and Democratic administrations played Baghdad and Tehran off each other to ensure neither became a regional giant threatening or dominant over US allies, notably Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf sheikdoms. But now, Cole said, Iraq and Iran are likely to take similar positions on many issues, from oil prices to US policy on Iran. "If the United Sta tes had decided three years ago to bomb Iran, it would have produced joy in Baghdad," he added. Conversely, the Iraqi secular democrats backed most strongly by the Bush administration lost big. During his State of the Union address last year , Bush invited Adnan Pachachi, a longtime Sunni politician and then-pres ident of the Iraqi Governing Council, to sit with first lady Laura Bush. Pachachi's party fared so poorly in the election that it won no seats i n the national assembly. And current Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, backed by the CIA during his year s in exile and handpicked by US and UN officials to lead the interim government, came in third. He addressed a joint session of Congress in September, a rare honor reserved for heads of state of the closest US allies. But now, US hopes that Allawi will tally enough votes to vie a s a compromise candidate and continue his leadership are unrealistic, an alysts say.
Unless the rulin g coalition reaches out to broaden itself to include all groups, the ins urgency will continue -- and may gain ground." Adel Abdul Mahdi, who is a leading contender to be prime minister, reiter ated yesterday that the new government does not want to emulate Iran. "W e don't want either a Shiite government or an Islamic government," he sa id on CNN's "Late Edition." And a senior State Department official said yesterday that the 48 percent vote won by the Shiite slate deprives it of an outright majority. "If i t had been higher, the slate would be seen with a lot more trepidation," he said on the condition of anonymity because of department rules. US and regional analysts agree that Iraq is not likely to become an Ira nian surrogate. Iraq's Arabs and Iran's Persians have a long and rocky h istory. During the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Iraq's Shiite troops did not defect to Iran. "There's the assumption that the new government will be close to Iran or influenced by Iran. That's a strong and reasonable assumption," Khouri s aid.
Sistani -- where the fault line is between Shiite religious identity and Iraqi national identity." Iranian-born Sistani is now Iraq's top cleric -- and the leader who press ed for elections when Washington favored a caucus system to pick a gover nment. His aides have also rejected Iran's theocracy as a model, althoug h the Shiite slate is expected to press for Islamic law to be incorporat ed in the new constitution. For now, the United States appears prepared to accept the results -- in l arge part because it has no choice. But the results were announced at a time when the United States faces mou nting tensions with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons ambitions, sup port for extremism and human rights violations. On her first trip abroad this month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran's behavior wa s "something to be loathed" and charged that the "unelected mullahs" are not good for Iran or the region. One of the biggest questions, analysts say, is whether Iraq's democratic election will make it easier -- or harder -- to pressure Iran.
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