Iran's Quds Force: Is the U.S. exaggerating Iranian

meddling in Iraq as a pretext to attack that country?

Many Iraqi Shiites think it is.

Sotal Iraq, Iraq

The U.S.-Sunni Conspiracy

Against the Shiites of Iraq

"Americans deal with Iraqi Shiites as though all of them were members or Iran's 'Quds Force' … the U.S. agenda now requires Iraqis to enter into an open confrontation with Iran by making Shiites into scapegoats."

By Asad Rashid

Translated By James Jacobson

October 8, 2007

Iraq - Sotal Iraq - Original Article (Arabic)

Americans deal with Iraqi Shiites as though all of them were members or the "Quds Force [a special unit of Iran Revolutionary Guards ]," an Iranian group that doesn’t exist in Iraq except in the imaginations of American military leaders and their failing commander, General David Petraeus, who has taken upon himself the task of destroying Iraq and transforming it into an arena for settling regional and international scores, a process by which every Iraqi sect and ethnicity is paying an enormous price.

This American view of Iraq, in which Shiites are all considered members of "Shiite militias" or elements recruited into the "Quds Force," reflect the state of confusion and frustration of the Bush Administration and its forces in Iraq, especially since Iranian-American reports talk of how the conflict is essentially about a struggle for influence and natural resources – resources that abound in Iraq and Iran - and particularly in Iran - where oil and gas reserves constitute a threat to American interests and influence in the region. This is what always pushes the American side to brandish the danger of Iran's possession of nuclear weapons, creating misgivings among countries in the region and its allies in the West.

In the midst of this conflict, American forces continue to provoke the Iranian side, involving Iraqi Shiites in a battle that has nothing to do with them. Analysts of Iraqi affairs see no reason for such an escalation while the U.S. military arms terrorist militias on the pretext of fighting al-Qaeda, except for the fact that the American agenda now requires Iraqis to enter into an open confrontation with Iran by making Iraq's Shiites into scapegoats.

Now comes the latest barbaric American operation, which took place in the village of Al-Jizani on the outskirts of Baquba. Witnesses revealed the depth of the confusion, when dozens of Shiite civilians on a pilgrimage were killed in air strikes of excessive force on the pretext that members of the Quds Force and one of its leaders had taken refuge in this area.

Photos of the corpses and their identification documents confirm that all the victims were Shiite civilians, which some politicians described as a "settling of accounts" paid by innocent people to help the Americans achieve their goal with dumb brutality, claiming to Iraqi politicians that they're members of terrorist organizations, "backward mujahideen," tribal factions and the Iraqi Islamic Party - always groups that act under the umbrella of the Iraqi Accord Front [a Sunni Islamist coalition ], which finds it in its interests to deceive the Americans and push them into a confrontation with Iraqi Shiites and even Iran.

If the former Baathist regime killed Shiites and banished them to the east and west under the pretext that they were "agents of Iran," American forces target their children under the pretext that they are members of the Quds Force and Iran's puppet militias. This won't bring security and stability to Iraq, but instead trap it in a spiral of violence and chaos. All of which benefits the terrorists and murderers who need to create chaos to achieve their hidden agendas, regional interests and those of the intelligence services [U.S., Saudi and Syrian].

With the Americans in such a state of confusion, the terrorists take advantage of the situation by escalating their criminal acts against civilians, especially Shiites, with the idiotic participation of the Americans, who see in these attacks cause for opposing Iranian influence and rear elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The complaint made to CNN by America's failed military leader, David Petraeus, in which he accused Iran's envoy to Iraq of being a member of the Quds Force, shows the seriousness of the situation. It reflects the dangerous course being followed by the U.S. commander, since according to analysts, the issue doesn't stop with Iran's diplomatic Corps., but includes all Shiites who don’t agree with the regional and international forces operating in Iraq.

These charges are particularly destructive since there is essentially no strong evidence to support the ridiculous allegations; they can only be attributed to a settling of accounts [on the part of Iraq's Sunni factions] and a policy of "weapons for me" politics, to improve the position of every faction included in their calculations, which doesn’t serve the central objectives for which the Americans say they came to Iraq.

Will we witness new butcheries against Iraqi Shiites under the pretext that they are "members of the Quds Force," focused particularly on targeting religious leaders in southern Iraq? We have already seen a dangerous escalation in assassinations of Shiite figures in southern and middle-Iraqi cities.

This isn't the doing of Shiites in the south, but the malignant influence of intelligence agencies from neighboring states [Sunnis states - Saudi Arabia, Syria] which are trying to drive a wedge between Shiite factions in Iraq. This would accomplish their conspiracy, in which the Americans together along with the followers of the Baath Party rule Iraq again.

While Shiites are being targeted as "members of Al-Quds" and the militias, the intelligence agencies of neighboring Arab states [Sunnis] send their agents to liquidate Shiite figures and target religious authorities in the south to sow confusion and insecurity amongst Shiites, and ignite a Shiite-Shiite war, with the way prepared by Arab media and their accomplices in the West.

Are we witnessing an evolving collective awareness among Shiites that the agreement between Muqtada Al-Sadr and Al-Hakiim is a healthy step toward aborting these hostile enemy plans and reunifying Shiites to better confront the plans being laid against them?

CLICK HERE FOR ARABIC VERSION