After Iraq war,U.S. has established heavy presence in Iraq, militarily and politically. For about every 500 Iraqis there is one American, about the same ratio was held in Iran during the Shah’s time, the only difference is that the square-miles area ofIran is about 4 times of Iraq. As such it can be deduced that U.S. presence in Iraq is four times more crowded than it was in Iran during Shah’s time. Currently there are about 47,000 U. S. forces in Iraq, which provide training, intelligence,surveillance, and forensic assistance to Iraqi counter-terrorism forces. On the other hand about 6000 American diplomats and staff members work and live in the new $1.3 billion U.S. embassy complex with 21 buildings on a 104 acre site in Baghdad, the largest and most expensive U.S. embassy in the world. It is naïve to construe that the new established Iraqi forces pursue its own military and strategic plans without consultation with U.S. Army and political authorities who live inIraq.
Just coupleof hours before the attack on Ashraf Camp by the Iraqi soldiers on April 8, American forces that have been previously dispatched into the Ashraf to monitor the recent-days incidents in the Camp, left their sites because of the issued warnings! As a result U.S. forces on the ground did absolutely nothing to prevent this homicidal attack despite the warnings! Couple of hours after the attack, the U.S. secretary of Defense who was in Baghdad stated that he was worried for the news received from Ashraf! One day after the beginning of attack, there were reports that the US forces have refrained receiving the wounded individuals to their medical facilities nearby!
During thelast couple of months in Washington D.C. several conferences entitled “Middle East in Transition: Prospects for Iran?” held by former top-ranking U.S. Officials and Army Generals, in which they not only urged Obama administration to remove the People’s Mujahidin Organization of Iran (PMOI) from the US State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations but they recommended PMOI as the only option for the future of Iran.
Outwardly two different sides of U.S. foreign policy by the Administration in regard to dealing with PMOI are being observed, the one in Washington that is for the PMOI and a completely different other one in Iraq that is against them. It is absurd to say that within this short period of time the U.S. foreign policy in dealing with PMOI has changed; on the contrary, recently there is some strong indication of recommendation from congress to President Obama to withdraw the PMOI from the list of terrorists.
There are numerous perceptions about this contradictive behavior of U.S., some interpret the U.S. green light to Iraqi forces for the attack as a show off of giveaway credit to IRI in a trade-off for removing PMOI from the list of terrorists. Others infer that U.S. wouldn’t like to disturb the balance of the green reformers who are not pursuing a regime change; they assume that removing PMOI from the list of terrorists by U.S. would make the reformers worried, in other word the same trade-off but for the green reformers and lobbyists.
The fact ofthe matter is that U.S. along with its European allies have concluded that the diplomacywith the current regime in Iran has reach a dead-end and that the world cannot tolerate the presence of such regime any longer since it has become a dangerous threat not only for the region but for the whole world. A war with this regime will be inevitable, it is just a matter of time; however when the time calls for such war with this regime U.S. and its European allies will use NATO force for the aerial attack, however they will be in need of a domestic ground force from the oppositions outside the country to engage in the war and confront the regime,similar to the model that was used in Afghanistan. U.S. knows that there is no domestic ground force better than PMOI to be used in the war to confront the IRI; in fact they are the only one that has the experience to do the job. However to have a successful operation it is required that the domestic force be received gladly and welcomed by the people inside the country once they have entered the country border.
U.S. has been aware of the fact that PMOI group has no basis among Iranians and in fact majority of Iranians despise this group as much as they hate IRI. So to turn the mood of the situation around, they needed to incite the Iranian’s kindness and compassion toward PMOI to create unity and harmony among Iranians and make them in support and patronage with this group. As such, U.S. gave the green light to the Iraqi force to attack the Ashraf Camp and as a result more than 30people are massacred and 300 others wounded. The result is the no brainer empathy and kindheartedness of naïve Iranians for the PMOI as we see it now.
MansurRastani, PhD
