An American-Iranian Confrontation in Iraq

The “New Iraq” lives a unique experience after six years of occupation by American forces. Iraqis do not know when security will return to their streets or when the acts of violence, which are responsible for the deaths of tens if not hundreds of people on a monthly basis, will end. The string of recent bombings targeting a number of government interests in the heart of the capital, Baghdad, aimed at spreading government resignation by signaling the likelihood of escalation until the day of the general election in March next year.

There is no doubt that the concurrence of this increase in violent terrorist attacks with worsening struggles between parties and blocs fighting over seats in parliament suggests that the electoral battle will not be peaceful, especially in light of the fact that a number of factions are resorting to the use of weapons and explosives-laden vehicles against their opponents.

News has emerged of Iranian forces storming the Iraqi border and taking over a disputed oil field in southern Iraq (Al-Fakka oil field) to add to the Iraqi government’s woes, some of which are deadly. For example, the most recent bloody attacks, the collapse of public services, and the struggles within the coalition that supports the Iraqi government are all damaging the authorities’ power.

There are at least two interpretations of the goals and timing of this surprising Iranian move.

The first is that the Iranian government wants to weaken the Al-Maliki government in favor of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)-led coalition, which it is closest to both politically and doctrinally, by opening a new front with it over oil fields and borders.

The second is that the Iranian government has started to feel as if the United States and its Western allies will resort to an economic blockade against it in the coming year, as the first step before a subsequent broad military operation. For this reason, Iran may have chosen to provoke the American military command in Iraq by making this move, in hope that the U.S. forces will intervene and confront the Iranian forces which have seized and raised its flag on the field.

It is difficult to discount either of the two mentioned options, and perhaps the Iranian move may have been to secure both goals, each of which weakens the Al-Maliki government in support of Iran’s allies in SCIRI. Drawing U.S. troops into a limited confrontation, something the U.S. military command does not want at this time, would also appeal to the Iranian government.

The Iranian President, Ahmadinejad, is sending out strong signals that Iran is confident about confronting the U.S. Army in response to America’s confusion as to how to deal with the Iranian nuclear file. This comes after the failure of peaceful negotiations set up in order to convince Iranians to stop uranium enrichment and handover most of its low-grade uranium to France, through Russia, where it would be converted into high-grade uranium to be used as fuel only.

Iran’s firing of the Sajil missile, the rocket with a reach of more than 2,000 km that cannot be taken down easily with anti-missiles, two days ago is thus a message to American president Barack Obama, as much as it is a message to Israel, that Iran will not stand with its hands tied in the event of being subject to a military attack. The message says, “We have the military capacity to reach Israeli targets, among them nuclear installations in Dimona, which lie in the heart of the Negev desert.”

In the same context, one can consider the Iranian announcement that it possesses 6,000 centrifuges for the enrichment of uranium as a sign they will only increase this number in the near future to begin a higher extraction of uranium within two years.

Iraq is a likely candidate for the battleground of a war between Iran and the United States, as much as it is a theater of war between numerous factions and the Iraqi government, among them “Al-Qaeda,” the Ba’athi resistance, and Iraq’s internal coalition government militias.