Quote Originally Posted by Danny View Post
With all due respect, this is being short sighted. Iran (leadership) cares nothing about Iran, and protecting their borders or thinking 'friends' and 'marriages' and so forth, short circuits the mindset of the Iranian leaders. [
I don't agree--I think there's a substantial dose of Iranian national interest in Iranian behaviour, albeit one that is (as everywhere) filtered through an ideological lens.

Interestingly, Iranian officials publicly and privately make a parallel argument (which I also disagree with)--namely, that the Bush Administration cares nothing for the US national interest, but has been captured by crusading neo-cons of mythical power behest to a higher calling (protecting Israel). Its rather hard to convince them that this is a simplistic and misleading analysis, and the frequency with which the view is held in Tehran needs to be factored into any analysis of Iranian foreign policy decision-making.

(I've posted on another thread my thoughts on Iranian regime behaviour and perceptions based on a recent trip there.)

Lest I be misunderstood, I know that the Iranians are doing fundamentally nasty things in both Iraq and Iran--indeed, I know about some of them in considerable detail. I've made that point bluntly in Tehran, and there are some there who agree--but its the IRGC and the MOIS who are setting the policy directions in these areas.

That doesn't change the fact that the Iranians are playing the Iraqi political game pragmatically, by securing influence wherever they can, in a country that is of fundamental strategic importance to them. I think we tend to forget that US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are rather like Soviet missiles in Cuba in Iranian eyes. They also think they're winning--their Shi'ite allies control the government, much of the IA, even more of the IP. The Kurds, especially the PUK, also know they fundamentally have to remain on good terms with Tehran. Its harder to think what they think of Afghanistan--I think there's a real disconnect between the MFA people who want to want to help Karzai and the IRGC and MOIS who would like to cause the US and NATO grief.

I also think, as I noted in the other thread, that there is a small but real chance of a US use of force against Iran during the Bush Administration--say 20%. I found very few informed Iranians who believed this (which may itself may be rather worrying).

As for Sadr, I think his own positioning as the authentic, Iraqi nationalist (ie, non-Iranian) Shi'ite force in 2003-04 highlights the extent to which this is a tactical alliance for him. As I said before, however, I think the marriage of convenience is likely to last some years.