The NYT reported in January that Iran was ready to "greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq - including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital," which the U.S. promised in 2003, but has yet to deliver. Iran's ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, also told the NYT that Iran was prepared to aid Iraq in its reconstruction in the wake of the Bush administration's decision to draw down and end their mostly ineffectual, and unaccountable efforts to repair the damage from their initial campaign of 'shock and awe'.
The Iranian ambassador also indicated to the NYT that Iran would provide the training, equipping, and advising of the Iraqi military and police forces which Bush has been promising, but has not been able to complete. The offer is made even more stark in the face of Bush's disregard of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and others that he should increase the training of Iraqi forces by introducing a contingent of advisers instead of the combat troops Bush chose instead to lead his new escalation of force.
No amount of "posturing against Iran by this discredited administration can obscure the fact that it is the Bush regime who has been the most pernicious aggressor against Iraq, and now, against the sovereign government of Iran. It's not enough for them to continue to insist that Iran is producing a nuclear weapon without any proof outside of their own duplicitous accusations. Now we are supposed to accept that the fearmongering liars in the White House who deliberately led America into war by lying about WMDs and terrorist ties to Saddam are, all of the sudden, amazingly credible in their accusations of "evidence" against Iran, whose government hasn't threatened the United States at all.
The initiatives by Iran underscore the absurdity of Bush's insistence that his invading and occupying forces are more amenable to Iraq's new government than its neighbor Iran, and undercut their claims that Iran, somehow, poses a threat to the further establishment of the new Iraqi regime. It is becoming increasingly evident that the U.S. military presence in Iraq is the most dangerous obstacle to the country's stability, and to the progress of their new regime; not Iran, who Bush is trying to saddle with his bloody failure.
The "enduring relationship" that Bush claims Iraq's embattled leaders are clamoring for is less about the protection requested by his Iraqi junta, than that relationship intends for Iraq to be used as a staging ground for even more opportunistic militarism in the future from the military capitalists who've been allowed to infect our government during his autocratic reign. Whoever manages to become the ultimate recipient of that relationship in Iraq would, presumably, be allowed to advantage themselves of the continued sacrifices of our nation's defenders for whatever self-sustaining enterprise they can dream on.
As Iraq's appointed leadership procrastinates in completing the political reconciliation Bush promised would occur behind the protection of our soldiers, more Americans are being killed and maimed. It's not at all out of line for Americans to demand to know why our military forces are being promised to Iraqis for indefinite exploitation. "Countering" Iranian influences in Iraq -- which our very invasion have enabled into fruition and Iraq's new leadership have embraced -- is not an endeavor which should "endure."
And, any notion of "defeating" al-Qaeda with an "enduring" military presence in Iraq is completely ignorant of the dynamic in which our military aggression there is the very engine driving Iraqis to identify with the 9-11 fugitives as they engage in violent expressions of liberty and self-determination which Bush disregards as mere obstacles to the consolidation of his false authority.
The occupation should be ended; lock stock, and barrel. Anything less is a recipe for Bush's perpetual, "enduring" militarism.
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