Iran’s military intervention in Iraq has intensified since the U.S. beganholding diplomatic talks with Tehran, prompting a leading Democratic hawk to urge the Bush administration to consider military strikes.
“The fanatical regime in Tehran has concluded that it can use proxies to strike at us and our friends in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine without fear of retaliation,” wrote Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Conn., in an editorial Friday in The Wall Street Journal. “It is time to restore that fear, and to inject greater doubt into the decision-making of Iranian leaders about the risks they are now running.”
The White House, pressed by Congress to withdraw troops from Iraq, has all but taken the military option off the table for dealing with Iran. It says it is committed to a diplomatic course and United Nations-approved economic sanctions to force Tehran to change its behavior.
The U.S. has held at least two face-to-face talks with Iranians in Baghdad. After discussions with his Iranian counterpart in May, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told reporters, “This is about actions, not just principles, and I laid out to the Iranians direct, specific concerns about their behavior in Iraq and their support for militias that are fighting Iraqi and coalition forces.”
But military analysts and officials see no improvement.
“Yes, it’s gotten worse,” said retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, a military analyst. “Iran has concluded that it will play a long-term prominent role in Iraq.”
“There does not seem to be any follow-through on the commitment that Iran has made to work with Iraq in addressing the destabilizing security issues,” said Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a spokesman in Baghdad.
Bergner last week released details on how Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Qods Force is arming and training Shiite militants at camps inside Iran. He talked of “secret cells” of Shiites “who are destabilizing the security situation in Iraq” at the behest of the Qods Force, whichreports to Iran’s ruling mullahs.
It was this new assessment that prompted Lieberman to press the White House. “The threat posed by Iran to our soldiers’ lives … is a truth that cannot be wished or waved away,” he said. “It must be confronted head-on.”
Michael Ledeen, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said, “For several years, the intelligence community was reluctant to accept the evidence of Iran’s massive involvement in Iraq, but military commanders have finally brought it front and center.”
