Washington has been abuzz over the Bush administration's possible willingness to use military force against Iran in the coming months. But a visiting top Iraqi official, when asked his opinion on the wisdom of mounting airstrikes against Iranian facilities, left little doubt about his own country's position.
"A big fat no" is what Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, told a small group at the Nixon Center today.
Al-Rubaie, who has been serving in that position since 2004, condemned what he called Iranian "meddling" in Iraq but said there is a simple reason for his government's opposition to a bombing campaign against facilities belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has been accused of funneling weapons to Iraqi militia groups.
"They will react against us," al-Rubaie said. "They will not come to New York. They will not come to Washington. They will come to us, I can tell you that, and we will be in big, big trouble. We are not ready for that."
Iran has long had significant interests in its western neighbor—political, economic, and religious interests in addition to security concerns. "There is no doubt that Iran is meddling in the internal affairs of Iraq," says al-Rubaie, adding that Iran has been funneling weapons and financial support to several groups in Iraq. More recently, he claims that Iran has even escalated the lethality of the weapons it is supplying, including more powerful rocket-propelled grenades and more capable mortars.
Surprisingly, he blames some of this escalation on the Bush administration for not trying hard enough in its diplomatic outreach to Iran. "It means that the engagement with Iran was not serious," he says. "It means that they have no immediate vested interests in the stabilization of Iraq." His example: Iran helped the United States stabilize Afghanistan as well as to win support for the presidency of Hamid Karzai, yet shortly after was publicly excoriated by President Bush as part of the "axis of evil."
A veteran Shiite political figure, al-Rubaie says that tougher measures are required against Iran but that they must be balanced by attractive incentives for cooperation. "They have to pay a heavy price for interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq," he says, "but at the same time, we have to talk to them and engage them and show them the carrot."
—Kevin Whitelaw
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