The Other War in Iraq
By Muhammad Abu Nasr.
The mysterious and criminal bombing of the Tomb of the Imam 'Ali
al-Hadi in Samarra' naturally has aroused speculation as to what party or parties
might have been behind it.
On the same day as the bombing, 22 February 2006, the Iraqi Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Baath Party
issued a statement saying that the US, Iran, and their client the American-installed Ibrahim al-Ja'fari
puppet regime had carried out the attack.
Not surprisingly, the puppet regime itself blamed "Wahhabis"
and "Salafis" - meaning mostly al-Qa'idah and Sunnis generally, for
the crime - directing the blame in a way guaranteed to provoke sectarian
violence of the sort necessary to implement the American-Zionist plan for
partitioning Iraq as advocated by Washington insider Leslie Gelb in his well
knows article "The Three-State Solution" in The New York Times
of 26 November 2003.
On Friday, 24 February, al-Qa'idah in Iraq issued a statement that tacitly denied any involvement in the bombing
while blaming the US, Iran, and the puppet regime in Baghdad
for the attack.
It is certainly true that the main beneficiary of the sectarian
violence sparked by the bombing are the US and the Zionist entity, and in the short term the ruling Shi'i sectarian
parties in Iraq.
But it has been observed that one imperialist country with a history of
stoking sectarian violence for its own ends – a country that has not been
mentioned in any of the discussion so far – is Britain, America’s key partner in the occupation.
There is certainly no conclusive evidence that London
was involved in the Samarra' bombing. But Britain's
proven expertise in the field of managing sectarian conflict make it essential
to take a closer look at what London's own agenda in the region. A study of recent events indicates that while
we have all been focused on the main conflict between the Iraqi Resistance and
the US occupation, Britain has been using its base in southern Iraq for some increasingly serious sparring with Iran, in a bout that could have major implications for the future of the Arabian Gulf region.
Before we look into recent developments, it would be useful to review
the geostrategic role that Britain
has played in the region in the past.
To begin with, Britain
is a former imperial power in Iraq, a power that acquired considerable experience in dealing with tribal
and religious sectarian forces in the country when it battled Iraqi resistance
especially in southern Iraq in
the 1920s.
But Iraq is not where Britain first secured a foothold in the region. Before the British mandate in Iraq, back in the 19th and early 20th century, Britain considered southern Iran to be its sphere of influence. Russia, then Britain's strategic rival, was regarded as the imperial power dominant
in northern Iran.
Around the turn of the 20th century, Britain reached out from Iran to
grab more control of the emerging oil region at the northern end of the Arabian Gulf. Britain sent out the notorious agent Percy Cox to cut a deal with tribal
chieftains and carve Kuwait
out of what had previously been the southern part of Ottoman-controlled Iraq.
Then in the course of World War I, British forces expanded London's
zone of control yet further as they drove up the Tigris-Euphrates valley into southern
Iraq.
And when the infamous Sykes-Picot agreement was first drafted in secret
by Britain, France, and Russia
in 1916, Britain staked its claim to control of southern Iraq - effectively extending its sphere of influence from southern Iran and Kuwait to the west. According
to the first draft of Sykes-Picot, Britain left Mosul and the north of Iraq to
France, as Britain was concerned with the vast swath of territory stretching
from Palestine to Afghanistan but was much less interested in points north. It was only later, after World War I, that
the British and French renegotiated, exchanging the interior of Syria for the north of Iraq. It was then of course that Prince Faysal the
Hashemi was forced out of Damascus and set on the throne in Baghdad.
The point of all this "ancient history" is that Britain has a history of interest and involvement, specifically with southern Iran and southern Iraq:
the oil-rich Arabian Gulf. Although it is
certainly true that times are ever changing, it is also true that geopolitical
interests have a way of resurfacing in the policies of states, over and over
again, regardless of regime changes, ideology, and even third-party alliances.
Now that Britain is back in its former sphere of influence in southern Iraq, what has it been up to, particularly in recent months? Initially, the British seemed only to be the
Americans of the south, that is, the "other" occupying force. But increasingly it appears that Britain has
been putting forward its own agenda in "its" part of Iraq, not
conforming entirely to the American pattern nor readily cooperating with the
Iraqi puppet forces who appeared such passionate friends only a year or so ago.
On 19 September 2005 Iraqi puppet
police arrested two British soldiers dressed as Iraqis in the streets of
al-Basrah. The two apparently were
planning some sort of under-cover operation in the city, possibly even a car
bombing. Under the rules governing
relations between the puppet forces and the occupation, the puppet police were
supposed to hand the captured Britons back to the British military. But they balked. Afraid that the puppet police might hand the
British undercover agents to one of the Shi'i militias, the British military
stormed the puppet police jail and took their commandoes back.
On the night of Friday, 7 October 2005,
British troops and their close allies the Danes, launched a wave of arrests
among their supposed allies, the puppet "Iraqi security forces" in
al-Basrah. As the Iraqi Resistance
Report noted at the time:
"Mafkarat al-Islam's correspondent reported that sources
that asked not to be identified had stated that they arrested electricity
distribution director for the province, 'Uday 'Awwad Kazim, was a member of the
Sayyid ash-Shuhada' Movement and had strong ties to Iranian intelligence. Such claims could not be confirmed, however,
particularly as the British occupation maintained a blackout on information
regarding its mass arrest campaign.
"The sweep in the al-Harethah, al-Qurnah, Karmat 'Ali, and
possibly other districts followed an earlier wave of arrests of puppet-regime
security service intelligence officers and puppet police in a sweep of the
al-Ma'qal area in northern al-Basrah. The British had arrested 15 'suspects' in
that sweep, according to an earlier dispatch posted by Mafkarat al-Islam
at 10:10am Mecca time Saturday morning.
"Although the exact reasons for the arrests were unknown, local
sources noted that the British campaign of arrests was taking place at a time
when there had been numerous charges that Iran was funding Shi'i groups in
southern Iraq to carry out acts of sabotage and assassination with the aim of
aggravating a sense of sectarian terror, making it appear that Sunni sectarians
were behind such attacks."
On 16 October 2005 Iran accused Britain of being behind bomb attacks in the Arab city of Ahwaz
near the Arabian Gulf in the southern region called Khuzistan by the Iranians where
most of Iran's crude oil reserves are located.
On 26 January 2006, following
another two bombings in the city of Ahwaz, Iran’s intelligence chief accused Britain of involvement. Shi'i cleric Ghulamhusayn Muhsini-Ezheh Ei, head of
the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, told reporters "There
is no doubt that Britain is among the foreign currents that had a hand in the
explosions in Ahwaz. "
"The enemy is now seeking to make Iranian border cities insecure
by sowing the seeds of discord among various ethnic and tribal groups in Iran, " Ezheh Ei added, according to media reports.
On Thursday, 2 February 2006,
armed men in a car in al-Basrah shot and killed two officers in the puppet
police intelligence division of southwest al-Basrah. At the time the local correspondent for Mafkarat
al-Islam reported that a number of other puppet police intelligence officers
were still being held prisoner by the British occupation forces on charges of
preparing and carrying out acts of terror on behalf of Iran. The district where the killing occurred had been the scene of
numerous attacks on Iraqi puppet officers and security men for which no
Resistance organization ever claimed responsibility.
When the deputy director for prisons in al-Basrah was shot dead three
days later, on 5 February, the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent noted
that assassinations of puppet officials in the city had been on the rise for
the previous two weeks.
The next day, the 6th, the British headquarters in the Shatt
al-'Arab Hotel in al-Basrah came under mortar bombardment.
On Sunday, 19 February, a group of men armed with pistols equipped with
silencers got out of a car in al-Basrah and shot dead a local Badr Brigade
commander at a food stall.
The next day, Monday, 20 February, four rockets were fired at the joint
Danish-British base in the area of al-Basrah.
It was apparently the first attack on occupation forces since the
bombardment of the Shatt al-'Arab Hotel on 6 February.
Then on Tuesday, 21 February, a group of Danish troops operating out of
a British base in al-Basrah came under attack and engaged in a gun battle that
left no casualties.
Wednesday, 22 February, of course was day of the infamous bombing of
the Imam ‘Ali al-Hadi Tomb in Samarra’.
Then on Friday, 24 February the “permanent headquarters” of the elite
British “Desert Rats” at the Shatt al-'Arab airport in al-Basrah was blasted by
two heavy 120mm mortar rounds that reportedly left several British troops dead
and wounded.
On the same day, the Scottish base at Camp Abu Naji in the southern
Iraqi city of al-'Amarah in Maysan Province – just about 60km from the Iranian border – was hit by an unusually
heavy barrage of 20 mortar shells.
Rarely if ever had that camp come under attack by the Iraqi Resistance
in the past.
As is the case with all covert action and shadow wars, it is extremely
difficult to know exactly and with certainty what it going on. What is clear, however, is that Britain and Iran are waging their own mini-war on the side of the main war
raging between the Iraqi Resistance and the US-British occupation.
Since the spring of 2003 there has been much speculation around the
world as to why Tony Blair, a politician of the British Labour Party whose
constituency is largely opposed to foreign adventures, would commit himself so
strongly to America's war on Iraq. To be sure, Britain shares the main imperialist-Zionist interests of Washington. But since it was clear that
the United States was going to invade Iraq with or without the material support of its NATO satellites, Blair
could have followed the politically expedient course of other western
countries, publicly criticizing the US while privately providing intelligence support. But Blair was adamant about putting British
troops on the ground in Iraq. Why?
With America's neo-conservatives actively pushing the so-called
"Three-State Solution," whereby Iraq would be split into three states
– Kurdish, Sunni Arab, and Shi'i Arab – actual British presence on the ground
in Iraq, particularly in southern Iraq, would position London to regain its
control of the oil interests that Sykes-Picot had staked out for Britain back
in 1916. With British troops controlling
southern Iraq, and the south split off as a separate entity, Britain would be in charge of the lucrative southern Iraqi oil fields.
But Iran, too has designs on southern Iraq and it appears that this clash of interests has expanded into a
regional battle, with Britain
even reaching out to challenge Tehran over Iran's oil rich territories along the northeast shore of the Arabian Gulf.
Faced with this British challenge, Iran has opted to call in the help of Britain's old geopolitical rival – Russia. Bringing back the "old
days" when Iranian Shahs sought to play off British interests against Russia and vice versa, Tehran reportedly secured a major increase in Russian military and
technical aid in late September and early October 2005.
Trying to apply diplomatic pressure that would impose sanctions on Iran and block further import of weapons, Britain lined up with "Israel" and the US
against Iran over Tehran's plans for nuclear energy development. For its part, Iran has secured the aid of Russia and Russia's ally China.
Whether Britain or Iran
were involved in the Samarra' attack is impossible to say based on the information
available. What is clear, however, is
that as the US and Iraqi Resistance remain locked in their bitter and
strategically decisive struggle, Britain has been pursuing its own aims in the
Arabian Gulf, battling Iran for dominance in perhaps the most strategically and
economically valuable region on earth.
Although a secondary contradiction compared to the main one between the US and the Arab Nation, Britain's battle with Iran is
full of serious implications. Britain today has a direct interest in splitting off the south of Iraq.
