(no subject)

[tagryn]

McCain is getting some heat for suggesting that al-Qaeda in Iraq is getting training and assistance from Iran. I don't get how its automatically a given that Shia Iran would never, ever help Sunni al-Qaeda, seeing how the 9-11 Commission Report found logistical cooperation between the two, at minimum. Add in the history of the Qods Force and Imad Mugniyah, and the possibility of continuing cooperation doesn't seem at all far-fetched.

As I recall, at the time most people would have considered the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact a ridiculous impossibility given the incompatibility of the two doctrines; yet, it happened. Enemy-of-my-enemy thinking can make for some strange bedfellows.

Comments

[erikred.livejournal.com]

As we well learned when we funded a bunch of promising fellows in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Cheap shots aside, though, the primary argument against Iran training and assisting AQI is that AQI is not only attacking American targets (certainly not a bad thing where Iran's Qods Force is concerned) but also Shia targets like Sadr's Mahdi army (certainly a bad thing where Iran's Ayatollah and mullahs are concerned).

To drop into your Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact analogy, this would be like the USSR supplying arms and ammunition to Charles de Gaulle's Free French forces in occupied France to the detriment of the French Communist Underground; enemy of my enemy is one thing, but the enemy of my friend is something else entirely.

[tagryn]

Agreed, and I don't think Iran was behind the bombings of the Samarra mosque, for example. That'd be going into serious conspiracy theory territory.

OTOH, something else we need to remember is that a key event in the history of the Iranian theocracy was the Iran-Iraq war. The last thing Iran wants is the return of a strong Iraq on their borders, so keeping Iraq unstable and weak is in their best interests...even with the current Shia-dominated government in control: the weaker the government, and the more reliant/vulnerable they are to Iranian-dominated groups like the Mahdi Army, the more secure Iran is.

I also think the Pasdaran in general, and Qods Force in particular, have the capability to run operations without going through the usual chain of command, as long as Khamenei gives approval; kind of the parallel to CIA black-ops. Considering the composition of Qods Force, it wouldn't surprise me to find the more radical portions of the gov't and armed forces going off and doing things (like helping AQI) that the more mainstream part of the theocracy wouldn't approve of.