 |
H. Thomas Hayden
recently concluded over 35 years of service,
which included the Agency for International
Development, the Marine Corps, defense industry
and the Pentagon. His specialties are Intelligence,
Counterinsurgency Operations, Counter-terrorism,
and Joint Concepts Development and Experimentation.
His Marine Corps assignments have included
command of two separate battalions; AC/S G-2,
4th MARDIV & AC/S G-2 FMFEurope; Branch Head,
HQMC, Special Operations and Low Intensity
Conflict (SO/LIC); Special Assistant to the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC;
and, Senior Program Analysts at HQMC with
the Joint Staff and DoD at the Pentagon. Overseas
assignments included Vietnam, Japan & Okinawa,
Europe, Central America, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait, Somalia, Singapore, Philippines, and
Colombia. He has an MBA (Pepperdine) and an
MA in International Relations (University
of Southern California). He has written two
books and is working on a third.
Thomas
Hayden Article Archives
Sound
Off! - Have an opinion about this
article? Visit the discussion forum.
|
|
|
|
August 12, 2005
[Have an opinion on this column? Sound off in the discussion
forum.]
Ever since Jimmy Carter's failed foreign policy with Iran over the Iranian seize of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the Iranians must think that the USA is a paper tiger. They keep pulling the tiger's tail in Iraq, over nuclear arms development, in human rights failures, and much more -- but the American tiger continues to demonstrate that it has no teeth when it comes to Iran.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has publicly accused Iran of allowing weapons to be “exported to insurgents in Iraq who use them to kill U.S. troops, coalition forces and civilians.” Yet he can only say that weapons, “…clearly, unambiguously, from Iran have been found in Iraq," in comments in his Press Conference on the hard-line Islamic regime in Tehran. "It's notably unhelpful for the Iranians to be allowing weapons of those types to cross the border."
That kind of tough talk surely must be of some concern to the Iranians.
In an interview with The Washington Times last year, Secretary Rumsfeld said that Iran was funneling people and money into Iraq to try to influence the political process. The Times previously reported that Iran's Revolutionary Guard, the regime's ideological enforcer, pumped cash into southern Iraq to aid extremist Shiites who support turning Iraq into a theocracy, just like Iran.
Additionally, U.S. Commanders in Iraq have repeatedly said they have seen evidence that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were assembled in Iran.
The Guardian (UK), in an article by Ewen MacAskill, August 11, 2005, reported that Britain described as "unacceptable," the smuggling of weapons from Iran into Iraq after revealing that a consignment was intercepted at the border between the two countries. He went on to say that while complaints have been made in the past, it is relatively rare to have concrete evidence of such smuggling. Yet, Iran has repeatedly denied any involvement in the insurgency or party politics in Iraq.
Yesterday, a British official disclosed details of the incident two weeks ago when a group crossing from Iran was intercepted near Maysan, which is in the British-controlled sector of Iraq. Iraqi security forces opened fire and the smugglers fled back to Iran leaving their cache of timers, detonators and other bomb-making equipment.
No one knew the identity of the group or those behind it but the Guardian said it had the "fingerprints" of either Iran's Revolutionary Guard, controlled by the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or the Lebanese-based Hezbollah, which Tehran supports.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Iraq's prime minister who spent years in exile in Iran, dodged questions yesterday about the alleged use of Iranian weapons by insurgents.
It is obvious that Iran has a vested interest in maintaining a degree of instability in
Iraq to ensure the US and Britain depart the area, and it shows little concern about anarchy threatening its own security. It would seem that events in Iraq are going in the direction Tehran would have liked with its Shia co-religionists dominant in Iraq, and an increased Islamisation in the British sector.
Iran has easily exerted influence in Iraq through the many prominent Iraqis who were exiled in Tehran and particularly the Badr Brigades, the Iraqi Shia militia that was based in Iran.
The British embassy in Tehran is reported to have raised the issue of exporting arms and explosives into Iraq at a meeting with the Iranian foreign ministry. British officials relayed the government's concern and pressed Iran to acknowledge that there was a problem that should be dealt with.
Funny, the British have “raised the issued with Iran,” but we have no word on American or British actions to stop the activities of the Iranians.
Unsurprisingly, Jimmy Carter -- who probably did more to create the current crises in the region with his failure to force Iran to release the former U.S. Embassy hostages in Tehran in 1980 -- is now complaining about the U.S. presence in Iraq.
If the arms smuggling to Iraqi insurgents was not enough, it is now reported that Iran has removed United Nations seals on uranium processing equipment at its Isfahan nuclear site, making the plant fully operational.
However, some apologists for Iran must be reassured that the envoys to the United Nations nuclear agency in Vienna are continuing to pursue a consensus on the wording of a resolution calling for the suspension of Iran's nuclear program
The removal of the seals took place under the very noses of the supervision of inspectors
from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the so-called “United Nations nuclear watchdog,” after the agency had installed surveillance cameras intended to ensure that no uranium would be diverted.
Again, in our American government's way of dealing with Iran, the US “criticized” the Iranians' move and hopes Britain, France and Germany keep pressing Iran to resume its voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment.
The war in Iraq will not come to a successful conclusion as long as Iran is aiding and abetting the insurgents and promoting an Iranian-style Islamic theocracy for Iraq's government. Additionally, the failure of the Sunnis to recognize the inherent dangers of an Iranian-backed Shiite-dominated Iraqi government will not be in their best interest. And they have the most to lose.
No insurgency anywhere in the world has ever been defeated as long as there was a hostile state on the border of the conflict providing assistance to the insurgents. In the case of Iraq, there are two hostile states supporting the insurgents -- Iran and Syria.
I am reminded of an old saying: There are none as blind as those who refuse to see. We do NOT have enough troops in Iraq to close the borders with Syria and Iran, conduct the counterinsurgency, support nation-building and train the Iraqi security forces.
The counterinsurgency cannot be won in Iraq under the current circumstances, and as long as the American government cannot or will not stop Iran and Syria from supporting the insurgents and the Shia militants, we might as well quit and stop the continuing useless loss of American lives.
 Email
this page to friends RSS feed
[Have an opinion on this article? Sound
off here.]
© 2005 H. Thomas Hayden. All opinions
expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily
reflect those of Military.com.
|
