US seeks Iran's help to quell unrest in Iraq

I think we can safely say that for the time being, any assault on Iran by the US is going to be put on hold for some time if not indefinitely. Some analysts have put an invasion of Iran off until at least 2007, after the mid-term elections. Who knows? Certainly in the interim the US' plan for Iran is to move along the diplomacy route with lots of carrots in hand. I'm not personally moved by the contents of this article as one might suspect. Given the state of multi-tier diplomacy and our history of doing business with dubious dictatorships, the fact that we're going to Iran for help, despite all that we already know about them, is really not all that surprising. I think it's kind of ballsy actually. Iran had a hand in fomenting the Shiite insurgency under Muqtadar early on in the Iraq war and to this day, it is believed that they are still funding terrorist operations there. It almost makes some degree of sense to just call Iran out on their BS and say, "We know what you're doing and we want you to stop." It won't work but I'm all for trying.

Here's the story:

US President George W Bush has asked American Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad to reach out to Iran for assistance in controlling the unrest in Iraq, a media report said.
United States Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad was quoted by Newsweek as saying he has received explicit permission from Bush to begin a diplomatic dialogue with Iran on the issue.

"I've been authorised by the president to engage the Iranians as I engaged them in Afghanistan directly," Khalilzad told Newsweek. "There will be meetings, and that's also a departure and an adjustment."

But he also emphasised the dangers of a panicky pullout of US troops.

"People need to be clear what the stakes are here," he said. "If we were to do a premature withdrawal, there could be a Shia-Sunni war here that could spread beyond Iraq. And you could have Iran backing the Shias and Sunni Arab states backing the Sunnis," he said.

There could be a regional war for a very long time and affect the security of oil supplies, he added.

Besides, "terrorists could take over part of this country and expand from here. And given the resources of Iraq, given the technical expertise of its people, it will make Afghanistan look like child's play," he said.

In the new year, there will be a new coherent strategy on the ground in Iraq, largely the handiwork of Gen George Casey, commander of the Multinational Forces, and Khalilzad, Newsweek says in its upcoming issue.