Confusion over Iraq blurs U.S. vision

WASHINGTON -- During that mad fall of 2002 when just about all the think tanks here had jumped aboard the war wagon -- I went to many of the sessions on Iraq for the simple reason that I could not believe reality -- one of the more idiotic exchanges occurred at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Daniel Serwer, one of this town's most sane diplomats and an analyst with the U.S. Institute of Peace, patiently and sardonically was questioning one of the neocons who believed the war was going to be a walk through the garden. "And how exactly," Serwer sarcastically asked, "is the private from Iowa going to know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in Iraq?"
A strange, glowing smile illuminated the face of the neocon, who like virtually all of them had never bothered to enlist for military service. It was the smile of the dumb fanatic. "Ohhhh," he gushed, "they'll KNOW, they'll KNOW."
I listened in awe at the stupidity of these men and women. I had been to Iraq eight times between 1973 and 1988; people were so terrified, you never could know what they really thought or did. Two weeks ago, one of the multipurpose insurgent groups running around that doomed country put on American uniforms, spoke English and managed to kidnap, and kill, a group of Americans under everyone's noses.
Now our decision-maker president (in medieval times, when they qualified a king's name with his qualities, this president would have been known as King George the Decider) has taken us another step deeper into confusion. Our decisive monarch has ordered his/our troops to kill or capture IRANIAN operatives within Iraq in order to force Teheran to pull in its nuclear pretensions.
Familial ties
Now, we know that Iran has dispatched 56 diplomats to staff its embassy in Baghdad and consulates in Basra and Karbala, and it maintains informal liaison offices in two Kurdish cities. The economic, spiritual, social and familial ties between the Iranians and the 60 percent of Iraq that is Shia are strong. Jordanian intelligence says "hundreds of thousands" of Iranian Shia, some of them Revolutionary Guard trainers, have crossed over into Iraq since the beginning of the war and are hovering about.
Exactly how are American troops, noted for their lack of knowledge of languages and culture, expected to know who is Iranian? They look like Iraqis, and most can easily change languages. An Iranian "diplomat" in Basra in a Western suit could easily be a Revolutionary Guard. Have you ever looked at a Persian miniature, those intricate inlays with thousands of mysterious and often contradictory meanings in every flower, lover and tree? The Persian Shia concomitantly believe in something called "dissimulation," which comes quite rationally out of their history of being conquered; it simply means to lie to protect the faith.
A people like us, who believe we are seeing what we SEEM to be seeing, has no chance against such a breed of moralistic deceivers.
What's more, our generals -- great military men if engaged in tank warfare with the Russians in Central Europe -- consistently say they are unclear on exactly who the different insurgency groups are. The Washington Post headlined an article on President Bush's confusion about the groups after the State of the Union address: "President's Portrayal of 'The Enemy' Often Flawed." The article noted how he lumped together disparate groups like Iran, a nation-state, with Shia and Sunni extremists ( & quot;different faces of the same totalitarian threat & quot;), and the internationalist al-Qaida and the Lebanese Hezbollah. And now he's managed to bring in the Iranians, too.
All right, smarty, what do we do?
Empowering Ahmadinejad
Well, first, think. It is no secret that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a dangerous, paranoid, violent child in foreign affairs. But everything we are doing serves to give him power, not deny it to him in the long run. In fact, he does not have either direct power over the nuclear program or Iran's military, and he has lost badly in two important recent elections. Americans who go to Iran say they have never seen such friendly people to America in the Middle East. Respectable international polls, just released, show that Americans and Iranians hold amazingly similar opinions against Osama bin Laden, in fear of terrorism, for control of nuclear weapons and in favor of democracy.
Universal Press Syndicate