Encouraging Press Coverage of Iranian Arms Claims

Though there have been some notable exceptions, the press corps is showing some signs of life on the Iranian arms issue. In the lead up to the Iraq invasion, most journalists not only accepted as true whatever the Bush administration claimed regarding factual matters, but they also readily accepted the administration's framing of those "facts." In other words, not only was the administration not forced to defend its factual assertions, it was not even forced to defend its (bizarre and alarmist) interpretation of the significance of those assertions.

It's encouraging, therefore, to see journalists not only questioning the veracity of the administration's factual claims regarding Iranian involvement in Iraq, but also refusing to make the unfounded inferences from that evidence that the administration clearly wants them to make.

Exhibit A is this Newsweek article, which provides much needed context for the President's claim that weapons being used against U.S. troops "were provided by the [Iranian] Quds Force.”

Just who are the Quds Force? And how good is the intelligence on them, really? A NEWSWEEK investigation shows that the evidence against the Quds Force is still questionable, and that some of the key Iraqi politicians Washington is relying on most, such as Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, have had close relations with the Iranian group. The United States found itself on the same side as the Quds Force after 9/11 in the fight against the Taliban, when Quds supported the leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Masoud.

These are the kind of facts the administration would prefer to gloss over. As is this:

Perhaps no one has benefited from the Quds Force’s patronage more than the current president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, who is also a close U.S. ally. Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party was Iran’s main ally in northern Iraq during the 1980s. When fighting broke out between rival Kurdish groups in the mid-'90s, the Quds Force fought on Talabani’s side against Massoud Barzani, whose Kurdish party had asked for Saddam Hussein’s help.

And this:

The confusion over the Quds Force—what exactly they’re doing in Iraq and how they came to be there—has created a dangerous ambiguity about the Iranian operatives who are now being targeted by U.S. forces. That became clear late last year when key Iraqi politicians complained that U.S. troops had arrested two Iranians who were guests of the Iraqi government. The incident occurred after Talabani hammered out a security agreement with Iranian officials last fall. In December, two IRGC officials were invited to Iraq, including a man believed to be the third most senior Quds Force official, Mohsen Chizari. U.S. troops arrested the men, even though they had diplomatic passports. Talabani demanded immediate release of the Iranians and confirmed that they had been invited by the Iraqi government.

On the night they were detained, the two Iranians had met with Hadi al-Ameri, head of the Badr Organization, once the militia of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Ameri also heads up the security committee in the Iraqi National Assembly. The two officials had come, Ameri told NEWSWEEK, to discuss security issues. Ameri said two top Iraqi government officials, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih and national-security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, had asked the Iranian government to help rein in the Mahdi Army, the rival Shiite militia directed by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr that is believed to be responsible for death squads and other sectarian violence, as well as attacks on U.S. troops. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki “wanted Iran’s help and said you can influence this issue," Ameri said in an interview. “This led to the Iranians sending the group with the diplomatic passports.” He added: “They had a meeting with me and we talked about how to put pressure on the Jaish Mahdi [Mahdi Army] not to attack Sunnis … how to prevent the Jaish Mahdi from working against the government and not to raise their weapons illegally.”

So Iranian Quds Force officials were invited to Iraq by the democratically-elected government we are fighting to support for the purpose of reining in Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. If true, that puts things in a slightly different light, doesn't it?

But what about the weapons? If the Quds Force is shipping weapons to Iraq, why are they doing so?

The spokesman for the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, later said that U.S. soldiers had found long lists of weapons inventories in the SCIRI compound where the Iranian officials were staying. He said SCIRI representatives told the Americans the weapons were for their protection. The upshot is that while the American military is blaming the Quds Force and IRGC for all sorts of misdeeds, the highest officials in the U.S.-backed Iraqi government appear to be buying weapons from them and asking for their help on security issues.

Hmm. At the very least things seem to be a bit more complicated than the administration would have us believe. The Newsweek article also raises some questions about the intelligence itself:

[T]he documentation remains scant. And considerable doubts continue to surface about the intelligence presented at the Baghdad slide show, including the fact that the writing on the conventional weapons displayed was in English, not Farsi. U.N. Ambassador Zarif also says that the date markings are American-style—that is, the month comes first. “There is every reason to believe that this evidence is fabricated,” he said. U.S. officials say the weapons were apparently built for the international market. Asked why the writing on the weapons allegedly made in Iran was in English, one U.S. intelligence official responded: “That’s a very good question.”

And finally:

[E]ven if elements of the Quds Force are involved in weapons trafficking, it is unclear if they are being directed by Tehran or if they are freelancing. After the war in Bosnia in the '90s, some former Quds Force members were known to engage in smuggling, apparently without the knowledge of their central command.

And it's not just Newsweek. An article published by the AP this morning frames the central issue pretty well:

Iran's secretive Quds Force, accused by the United States of arming Iraqi militants with deadly bomb-making material, has built up an extensive network in the war-torn country, recruiting Iraqis and supporting not only Shiite militias but also Shiites allied with Washington.

Still unclear, however, is how closely Iran's top leadership is directing the Quds Force's operations -- and whether Iran has intended for its help to Shiite militias to be turned against U.S. forces.

Iran likely does not want a direct confrontation with American troops in Iraq but is backing militiamen to ensure Shiites win any future civil war with Iraqi Sunnis after the Americans leave, several experts said Thursday.

The Bush administration clearly wants us to believe that the Iranians are 1) largely responsible for the chaos in Iraq, and 2) supplying weapons to Iraqis for use against U.S. troops. The first assertion is absurd. Sunni insurgents are responsible for the vast majority of U.S. casualties and the sectarian conflict in Iraq would be raging whether or not Iran was in the picture. As for the second assertion, that Iran is acting with the intention of causing harm to U.S. troops, well, that requires us overlooking a much more obvious motive: helping their Shia allies in Iraq prevail in a civil war which has already begun and seems likely to get worse.

I'm not suggesting that Iran's motives here are pure or that it is not possible that Iran is also trying to harm U.S. troops. But the situation is far more complex than the Bush administration would have us believe, and the evidence is far from conclusive. As a basic matter, it's not clear why Iran would want to harm U.S. troops in Iraq, much less do so using weapons that are easily traced back to Iran. The Iranians have to sense that there are people in the Bush administration itching for a justification to take military action against them. Why would they want to provoke that?

On the other hand, it is easy to see why Iran would be interested in training and supplying Shia forces in Iraq. It is very much in Iran's interest for the Shia majority to retain control of the country. In order for that to happen, the Shia majority needs to be prepared to defend itself when U.S. troops pull out of Iraq, which is going to happen sooner or later. If Iran is indeed shipping weapons to Iraq, isn't this by far the most plausible explanation of why they are doing so?