Iran's temptation of the prospect of an Arab country controlled by the Shi'a for the first time in modern history is deluding Tehran to miscalculate, to the detriment of the Shiites themselves as well as to Islamic unity and regional peace and security.
What Arab critics see as Iran's sectarian policies is cited as the pretext for many Arabs to conclude that the presence of the American occupying forces in Iraq is a guarantee against the collapse of the country into an abyss of sectarian strife; many Arab leaders had on record declared their opposition to U.S. exit from Iraq, which led to counter accusations by Tehran in a futile war of words that only the U.S. occupiers have stake in.
The sectarian divide and a rapprochement between a U.S.-installed "Shiite-Kurdish" regime and Iran were evidently foreseen by Washington and taken into account as positive factors in neutralizing Iran and the Iran-influenced Shiites and Kurds of Iraq, a calculation that the current state of affairs in Iraq vindicates as a proven anticipation.
One of the headache questions that scare the war strategists in Washington since 9/11, the ensuing U.S "war on terror" and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq is how to abort the potential for a unified Islamic resistance between active Sunni and Shi'a forces.
Arab public opinion has always seen in the Islamic revolution a strategic depth which removed the U.S.-installed pro-Israel regime of the Shah from Tehran but could not apprehend Iran's passivity or collusion vis-Ã-vis the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Hailing the occupation of the sisterly Muslim neighbor by Tehran as innocently an ousting of a dictatorship could not be interpreted except as in defense of the bad example of inviting the Great Satan, or any other foreign power, to interfere in settling scores in intra-Muslim conflicts and disputes; if the precedent is applied to Iran it would implicitly justify calling in the American forces by the Iranian opposition of the Mujahideen Khalq to invade Iran; what Muslim could defend it?
Changing regimes by foreign invasion is in principle rejected regionally and internationally. No sectarian alliances or dividends could justify it; nor could anti-Saddam vendetta.
In Iraq there is ample evidence that Iranian policies have significantly contributed both to the sectarian divide and the U.S. exploitation of the underlying sectarian fire. The seeds of the low-intensity civil war that is raging in Iraq now and the de facto division of the country have flowered in these policies.
What seems to outsiders as a sectarian divide is in fact a divide between Iraqis who resist the U.S-British occupation and their compatriots who opted to co-exist with this occupation in the so-called "political process," which was planned and legalized by the occupying powers themselves and to which Iran subscribed from the start.
Iran's alignment mobilized Iraqis on sectarian lines behind leaders who followed in the footsteps of the invading armies and who were trained, equipped and financed ironically by both Tehran and Washington, where they still maintain offices; there was no other way for Tehran to maintain its current "superiority" in Iraq.
Hence the sectarian divide between Iran's Shiite-Kurdish allies -- who are empowered by the occupying powers as the new rulers of Iraq and immediately recognized by Tehran as the legitimate government - and the Sunni-led resistance to the occupation and its quislings.
This is a doomed Iraqi and regional policy that will inevitably reflect adversely on Iran's confrontation with the U.S. over its legitimate right to possess nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The Arab geopolitical support is Iran's only strategic asset that cannot be replaced by a Shiite regime in Baghdad.
The future of Iraq and the region as well as the U.S. and Israeli occupations will be decided positively only by a turnabout in Iran's policies to cement the Islamic unity between Arabs and Persians and their respective ethnic minorities as the only regional defense against foreign intrusions; otherwise the region will continue to be polarized on foreign lines and terms.
The prerogatives of Islamic unity and averting a Shiite-Sunni divide from playing into the hands of U.S. occupiers in Iraq and far beyond in the region requires that Iran accommodates the proven historical experience that exclusion of Arabs and Pan-Arabism deprives Islam of its vital component, acknowledges that sectarization of Islamic politics adversely affect Islamic unity, rejects in principle the exploitation of foreign powers' interference to settle intra-Muslim scores, and translating these prerogatives into concrete policies.
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