US Forces Storm Iranian Consulate in Irbil
The US military stormed the Iranian consulate in the northern Iraq Kurdistan city of Irbil on Thursday.
Irbil is the fief of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani. The Kurdistan Regional Government, which he leads, is semi-autonomous and maintains a regional army, the Peshmerga, of 60,000 men. Kurdistan authorities say that no federal Iraqi army troops may set foot in Kurdistan.
Kurdistan is eager to retain its semi-autonomy, and hopes ultimately for independence. It cannot expect the Baghdad government to fund its military. Sunni guerrillas have sabotaged oil exports from Kirkuk.
One scenario you could imagine is that Iran was sending some aid and weaponry to the Peshmerga on condition it be shared with the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The US raided a compound of SCIRI leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim recently and captured Iranian intelligence officials there, who had come to consult about the shape of the Iraqi government.
Kurdistan authorities have long had good relations with the Badr Corps, to which they gave bases in Kurdistan late in the Saddam period when they were jointly trying to overthrow him.
Although Bush keeps implying that Iran is supplying weapons and aid to US enemies in Iraq, the circumstantial evidence is that it was helping the two main US allies in Iraq with their paramilitary capabilities-- Kurdistan and SCIRI. But it is likely that the money and weapons do bleed over into insurgent groups and have a destabilizing effect.
The most strident complaints about Iranian aid to Peshmerga and Badr come from the Sunni Arab political leaders. One wonders if this is a last gift to them by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad before he goes out, and a sign that the US is trying to get them back to the negotiating table?
Stay tuned.
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/11/2007 12:31:00 PM
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11 Comments:
Was the operation in Irbil mounted by US or coalition troops?
Accordding to a recent BBC report, S. Korea has 2.500 troops in Iraq, primarily in Irbil.
S. Korea upped their contingent during one of the pre-election surges, to keep our forces in place near Seoul.
S. Korea is a major (3rd or fourth, after the larger E Asian economies) holder of US (war) debt bonds. As PM Barnett has written, we are an exporter of security. Unfortunately it is an inferior product, and only trades for credit.
This Iranian consulate opened as a liaison office long before the 2003 war, just as both the KDP and PUK have always maintained liaison offices in Tehran. Since this consulate pre-dated the war, and the KRG is not an officially recognized government, the US may have raided what is formally a liaison office rather than an accredited consulate. That would give them at least some legal cover for what was otherwise a blatantly illegal act. However, given that the foreign minister is Hoshyar Zebari, this could have been an official consulate. And Bush has never shied away from illegal acts.
In terms of motivation, it's possible that weapons are coming into Kurdistan from Iran, and that Kurdish-SCIRI collusion could have been the reason for this stupid and illegal act.
However, might you be giving the US intelligence too much credit? It seems to me equally likely that the US decided simply to provoke the Iranians, and perhaps one easy way to do that was to raid their consulate in Erbil. The consulate was not as well protected as Iranian missions elsewhere. It's probably the only Iranian mission the US could fly in, raid and leave, without getting into a major firefight.
Rather than interdicting weapons, Bush may be looking to provoke an Iranian response, which he can use for leverage or at least to ratchet up the fear in an attempt to manipulate Congress and the American people yet again. I honestly fear he's looking for a reason to attack Iran - this double-or-nothing approach to his failed presidency is straight out of the American Enterprise Institute, and they have embraced totally insane rhetoric with regards to Iran. It could be Bush wants to poke the Iranians again and again to get them to strike out. I hope Iran is smart enough not to fall into that trap.
The peshmerga forces I see are not armed with advanced weapons, and most of their uniforms, body armor and the like comes from the Americans. (And I have visited the elite units near Kirkuk and outside of Suleymaniya - they may have newer weapons squirreled away somewhere, but they are still essentially a guerilla movement armed with light weapons.) Lots of arms depots were raided after the 2003 war; you can trust that the Kurds didn't sit idle while the former Ba'athists trucked all those weapons away - but most of what they got are RPGs and AK47's.
And... there are reasons for the Iranians not to arm the Kurds. The Kurds wish to preserve neutrality with Iran, but they will certainly support Iranian Kurdish insurgents if Iran tries to shut them down or eventually colludes with Turkey to end Kurdish self-rule. Iran's best move (and the Kurds' best move) is to maintain friendly relations, avoid provocations, and gradually reach an accommodation on self-rule with the understanding that the Iraqi Kurds will absolutely avoid any assistance to their Kurdish nationalist bretheren in Iran. I can't believe Iran would arm basically pro-American Kurds given the Kurdish role in the 1946 Mahabad Republic. I equally cannot imagine that the Kurdish parties are short-sighted enough to participate in any US skullduggery against Iran - especially on behalf of a US administration that never seems to miss an opportunity to insult them.
This event is another stupid insult to the Kurds, but they will continue to avoid picking sides between the Americans and the Iranians. They will negotiate with all sides, just as they have always done. The consulate will re-open, and it will be business as usual.
I'm especially interested in this recent news story that the US will use Iraqi Army units consisting of Kurdish peshmerga to try to pacify Sadr City. On the one hand, the PUK and KDP can't stand Sadr, because his attempt to revisit autonomy is totally anathema to them. On the other, the Kurds can't pacify Sadr City and they are smart enough to know that. I also suspect they want to preserve some ability to negotiate with Sadr. The Kurdish people have even less interest in trying to occupy Sadr City than the American people, and a real fight with Sadr is not going to go down well with the Kurdish street. So is this all Kabuki to keep Bush pacified? Maybe. But I worry about PUK troops facing off against Mehdi Army troops even if neither side starts out serious - because that sort of theater could escalate into something more malignant.
One more minor comment: Barzani is head of the KRG, but whatever happens in Erbil also involves the PUK. The Kurdistan Regional Government is a balancing act, not a KDP-controlled enterprise, and Erbil is not Barzani's fief, at least not exclusively. Barzani fought Talabani over Erbil in 1996, but the PUK controls half the ministries and is very strong in Erbil. The PUK is by no means irrelevant - in fact the civil service effectively doubled in size in 2006 because nearly all PUK government workers from Suleymaniya simply moved to Erbil when the governments unified. Nobody wanted to be responsible for layoffs.
Found "The Kucinich Plan For Iraq" at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16123.htm yesterday and found it very reasonable as it intersects with Ali Allawi's plan, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16071.htm
Clearly, these are the two statesmen we needed to step forward with a well articulated alternative based on a correct and truthful understanding of the situation, and it is my belief that they MUST be promoted in a netroots manner as we've seen how the corporate media works in this regard.
As for why Al-Anbar province, that is where the untapped oilfields are: [I tried to paste the map located at http://www.judicialwatch.org/IraqOilMap.pdf for all to see.] And just because no blocks are present in the northern part of the province doesn't mean there isn't oil there to find; just look at the size of the field west of Haditha. No future oil exploration let alone production is going to happen there from the Cheney perspective until it's cleared of Sunni resistence; nor do I think that any western oil corp will be allowed any peace there long into the future. Ultimately, Iraqi oil is going to be developed by Iraqis.
One thing is certain, the Bush speech and planned escalation also serves as an escaltion in the political war between the American people and the Executive branch of the federal government. One area of interest: Did the speech serve to heighten the already significant level of rebellion existing in the military?
It would seem logical to me for the AHA to meld its oppositional resolution with those of other professional organizations, like the Union of Concernered Scientists, who've already made clear their opposition.
Hi Professor Cole,
I am a little confused about one of the points in your theory and was hoping you could help me out. I can understand Kurdistani officials having reasonably good relations with the Badr Corps, and of course the Badr Corps having warm relations with Iran, but I don't quite understand the reputed warmth between Iran and Kurdistan. Doesn't an independent Kurdistan pose similar problems for Iran as it does for Turkey (Kurdish separatists in Iran would want to join a new Kurdistan I would think)? So why wouldn't Iran cut out the 'middleman', so to speak, and directly aid the Badr Corps especially when the 'middleman' seems to work against Iranian interests?
Thanks.
While it is possible the action originated at the local level it seems unlikely that such a step would be taken without explicit approval from Washington, particularly comming as it did after the statements in last nights speech.
If the action originated in Washington it would appear to be a deliberate provocation intended to lead to war with Iran. If the Bush administration can provoke an attack they might be able to use their air and sea power to force Iran to surrender. They might not need ground forces, they might be greated as liberators. The same set of dellusions that were trotted out to support the invasion of Iraq. Bush is good at starting wars, he is unable to finish them.
The most likely response from Iran is that they will wait. This time the administration claims that their intended target is building WMD are entirely credible. The Iranians have the means to do so and after the Axis of Evil speech they would be utter fools not to. Bush has shown repeatedly that his word cannot be trusted so there is no incentive to agree to a negotiated settlement, as in Iraq the US would accept the negotiated settlement then attack anyway after Iran had unilaterally disarmed.
If Iran does feel the need to make a response they will do so through a proxy attack on Israel. The Bush administration becomes markedly less beligerant towards Iran during these periods.
That is not to say that the Mullahs may not see advantage in a war with the US. They might consider a war inevitable and prefer it to start at a time of their choosing. Their trump card is not their nuclear program but their strategic hold on the Straits of Hormuz. Last time they closed the straits during the Tanker War the West quickly forced Saddam to accept a ceasefire.
Both sides have an interest in starting a war, what stays their hand is that each needs the other to initiate the attack. Beligerance is not popular in either country. In order to stoke up the nationalist fires they really need the other side to initiate what can be claimed to be an unprovoked attack.
The approach of the Bush administration can be sumarized in what I call The Shorter Matrix. It would be funny if not true.
So let me get this straight: Bush is now defying the Baker Report, Congress, the military, and the American public by escalating the war...Forgive me for not brimming over with optimism...
www.minor-ripper.blogspot.com
Another quick point: Peshmerga salaries are paid through the KRG's share of national oil revenue, not the oil specifically pumped from Kirkuk. This is one reason why they take such an active interest in parliament - they depend on the federal budgeting process to pay their army and civil service salaries.
Juan,
What do you think about this draft oil law that British and American oil companies, security firms and Cheney's goons are trying to shove down the throats of the Iraqi Parliament? The one that basically guarantees profits of Iraq's oil to Anglo-American oil companies almost in perpetuity, and forbids Iraqis from nationalizing the fields themselves? Looks like the US even has a malleable puppet in the person of Adil Abdul Mahdi, the SCIRI Vice-President, who wants to do the bidding for the US and UK, selling out his own people in return for a share of the profits. Same sort of thing the British were always trying to do in India (and which they were unsuccessful doing in Iraq themselves in the 1920's).
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IA12Ak05.html
This is scary, and IMHO it's THE story of the Iraq War right now. Seriously-- is this really what the Bush Administration and Blair have had in mind all along? Fighting a bloody war to win drilling rights for Exxon, BP and Royal Dutch/Shell in the rich Iraqi fields?
If this draft law is rubber-stamped by the Iraqi puppet government, all hell would break loose in Iraq-- the Shiite Arabs would hit the Americans and British hard and cut off our frail supply lines. Methinks that maybe, just maybe, Cheney, Bush and some hawkish Democrats (e.g. Joseph Biden and Hillary Clinton among others) would nonetheless be willing to offer up our soldiers as human sacrifices in return for rewarding powerful Anglo-American oil companies.
I don't know as much about this as I'd like-- what do you think?
Many Bush supporters reacted this way:
Jules Crittenden :
http://julescrittenden.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-it-is-done.html
Thursday, January 11, 2007
How It Is Done
The Washington Post reports U.S. troops raided an Iranian consulate in Iraq and seized a number of Iranians suspected of aiding the insurgency. No doubt the Iranians will squawk about the violation of diplomatic immunity, incursion on sovereign Iranian territory, international law, blah blah blah. I encourage them then to raid our embassy and consulates in Iran. ...oh yeah, we don't have any. Remember why? This is an early indicator that the gloves are in fact off, which is the key component to success in this change of strategy.
Posted by jules crittenden at 11:00 AM
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A dailykos writer reacted this way:
LondonYank :
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/11/161021/706
Losing One More Friend In Iraq
by LondonYank
Thu Jan 11, 2007 at 01:56:44 PM PST
(photograph) This is me, LondonYank, with Massoud Barzani in 2003. (I'm the one with the bow.) I was in Erbil, Kurdistan, northern Iraq. We were treated regally, with amazing hospitality, as is consistent with the character of the Kurdish people.
...Today I fear we have lost one of the few friends remaining to us in Iraq.
"The office of the Iraqi Kurdish party leader Massoud Barzani in northern Iraqi city of Arbil on Thursday condemned the US military raid on Iranian consulate building in the city in the morning and called for immediate release of Iranians detained during the operation."
This was such a stupid thing to do. The 60,000 Peshmerga militia is the only truly disciplined and capable military force in Iraq. It has fought alongside the United States military since the invasion in 2003 and supported the occupation throughout Iraq ever since. But if Barzani were to call them all home tonight they would be home by morning.
...Hospitality is central to morality in the Middle East. The proper regard for and protection of guests is a moral obligation. Barzani and Kurdistan will be shamed deeply by what has occured today.
...Besides being friendly with Iran, the Kurds have been friendly to US and Israel, allowing Israelis to live and operate quite freely from bases in Iraq for their clandestine operations in Iraq and Iran. Without such cooperation, many things which have been possible would not be possible (though I'm not so sure this would be a bad thing).
Why did we do such a stupid thing?
...This one incident may not be enough to turn the Kurds from being our staunch allies, but it strikes so close to the heart of what is valued by the Kurds and colours their sense of honour that it will be enough to make them think very carefully about their future alliance prospects...
-- LondonYank
* * *
Update from ABC News :
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2788262
U.S. Troops Stage Second Secret Raid at Iraq Airport
Jan. 11, 2007
U.S. troops staged two secret raids in northern Iraq today...
...The liaison office that was raided issues travel permits for Iraqis traveling to Iran and other consular tasks and is on a waiting list to be officially declared a consulate. Technically, according to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, the Iranians working in the liaison are not diplomats...
...In the second raid, staged later in the day, U.S. troops attempted to abduct more people from inside the perimeter of Irbil airport, but were surrounded by Kurdish peshmerga troops.
"This group has come from nowhere," Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told ABC News. "They were unwilling to reveal their identity and entered the airport, which is a very sensitive area, and there was a response by the local forces."
Both sides were heavily armed, and shooting very nearly broke out.
"There weren't any casualties, but it was a split second really for a disaster to happen.
This has created a great deal of anxiety," said Zebari.
It is unclear where the U.S. troops came from — even local U.S. officials contacted by the Kurdish authorities had no knowledge of the armed men.
Barzani, like his father before him, has been all over the map as an agent for or protegee of the Soviets, Turkey, Iran, the U.S., and various Iraqi clans and parties. For nearly all tribal peoples with sizeable populations in the Caucusus, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, their power and persistence is measured by successfully positioning themselves amongst those who can do them the most good and the most harm. They are essentially "traders", in a euphemistic sense, and mercenaries, and "lobbyists" for others. They have had little else apart from farming or herding to sustain them until recent times.
Under the relative peace of U.S. protection from Iraqi Sunnis, more or less steadily since the Gulf War, Kurdistan has begun at last to develop an effective regional government which is providing basic services and making early steps for development in the region, and even a university with UK assistance. This has been a goal for the last 150 years, but due to centuries of splitting of their peoples by the Turks and later by the victors of World War I and their post-colonial dictators, educated Kurdi, or those with a wider vision for their own life, had to work for the Arabs or go even further abroad. We must not underestimate how important the current status of Kurdistan is in their long term dreams.
The recent Baker/Hamilton commission report and its tone was deeply upsetting in Kurdistan, as you will have seen from Kurdi websites and news sources. They sense another in a long line of betrayals coming from yet another powerful group who has used them or protected them.
So they may well be making "courtesy calls" on people they may have neglected and might need to deal with if or when the Americans actually do buckle and run. Both Sadr and Iran may be such entities the Kurds have touched base with recently.
But I suspect that information turned up from the short term detention of several other Iranian embassy workers by Americans a week or two ago which led to the raid(s) at Arbil/Erbil/Irbil. This may be about arms traffic from Iran, as suggested here, expanding beyond what comes through the delta near Khoramshahr (Iran) and Basra. It might even be drug trafic, although that would be a less likely to draw attention in time of war. Or it may be that it was simply easier for the U.S. to get at Iranian computers and papers relating to pan-Iraqi Iranian covert activities in Arbil than elsewhere. It may also have served as a test of Peshmerga and Kurdi reactions before their possible inclusion in the Baghdad surge plan.
US and Kurdi operatives are in reasonably close and regular contact at many levels, as they have been since before the Gulf War, but probably recently in a less acute operational program. The Kurdish borders are well-sealed to casual or even official visitors as you all have read or experienced. I am inclined to see this raid as a test and a search for some specific information on Iranian activities which may not even be ocurring in or through Iraqi Kurdistan.
I do not think the Kurds wish to rock the boat too hard. They too, like the world at large post Soviet collapse, want to enjoy the "peace dividend" and have done so. And just as in the rest of the world there is a lot of wishful thinking in Kurdistan, which is the magical part of hope that things will be "alright" if they are very, very careful and quiet. Perhaps evil will just come to an end in the world, and the Arabs will not butcher them again even if the foreigners leave.
The Kurds sense they need to be a part of the solution for Iraq and not just safe haven bystanders, and they are wrestling with how best to do that. They are very talented and admirable people.
Thanks for this excellent site.
Yusuf
Thanks for your nice post!
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