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 here
is a popular joke in Baghdad about a man who buys a black-and-white
television set. He takes the set home, plugs it in, but it doesn't
work. So he runs back to the market and confronts the merchant.
"You've sold me a defective television," he complains,
"I plug it in but there's no picture." The merchant pastes
a picture of Saddam Hussein to the screen, smiles, and responds,
"It works now, plus it's in color."
On February 27, after
months of foot dragging, the state department finally agreed to
back construction of an Iraqi opposition radio transmitter to be
run by the Iraqi National Congress. Breaking Saddam's media monopoly
is a good idea and long overdue. There's only one problem: Some
in the state department want to base the transmitter in Iran. Cooperating
against Saddam might help Washington and Tehran repair relations,
these diplomats argue. It sounds good in theory, but it's a remarkably
bad idea.
I lived in northern
Iraq for nine months last year while teaching Iranian history at
local universities. While there, the Iranian government — so
often portrayed as reformist or moderate in the American press —
worked tirelessly to both promote Islamic Revolution and undermine
stability not only in the U.S.-protected safe haven, but in Turkey
as well.
Turkey is a model of
success when compared to most of its Middle Eastern neighbors. Because
Turkey's constitution strongly divides mosque and state, Turkey
presents a strong ideological challenge to Iran's ayatollahs who
continue to run their country into the ground. Turkey has not been
without serious problems, though. Since 1984, the Turks have been
embroiled in a bloody conflict with a separatist group called the
Kurdistan Workers Party, better known by the acronym PKK. More than
37,000 people have died. In 1989, the ayatollahs allowed the PKK
to set up 20 bases inside Iran to strike at Turkey. Where does the
PKK get its weapons? Iran. Since 1999, Iran has supplied the PKK
with almost any light weapon it wanted. In 2000, Iran supplied and
actively supported the PKK as they did battle with the pro-American
and secular groups that control the Iraqi safe-haven. Iran also
extends its support to a variety of Islamist groups that make the
Taliban look moderate. In January 2001, the Iranian government helped
members of a group called the Kaplanists transit Iran and establish
a base inside Iraqi Kurdistan. What exactly do the Kaplanists stand
for? In interviews with European and Turkish press, their leader
Metin Kaplan claimed he is "the caliph and successor to the
prophet." In 1998, he told Turkish TV, "We have declared
Jihad. Everybody who opposed Islam and an Islamic state will die."
When a rival religious figure challenged Kaplan's leadership two
years ago, Kaplan issued a fatwah (religious judgment) calling
for his rival's death. Kaplan's followers carried out the order.
Unfortunately, Kaplan
is only one part of Tehran's vision for the future of Iraq. As war
waged in Afghanistan, Iran supported a new group, the Jund al-Islam
(Army of Islam) established itself along Iran's mountainous frontier
with Iraq. A leaflet from the Jund al-Islam explained the group's
program: Holy War against "blasphemers and the secularists."
Supplied with weapons smuggled across the Iranian border, the Jund
al-Islam proceeded to slaughter several dozen "secular"
Kurds, beheading them and mutilating their bodies. Such is the vision
of the Islamic Republic, even under so-called moderates like President
Muhammad Khatami.
Testifying before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee last December, State Department
Policy Planning chief Richard Haass told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee that, "the pattern of Iranian behavior…deserves
to be labeled as constructive." Perhaps Foggy Bottom diplomats
have a new definition of "constructive," but trusting
Tehran to not interfere with a U.S.-financed radio station seems
a recipe for disaster.
Saddam is an enemy,
and a threat both to the United States and his own people. But an
enemy of our enemy need not be our friend. The U.S. erred by letting
Saddam remain in power for a decade, and should have allowed Iraqi
National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi to establish a local radio
station years ago. But let's not now compound those mistakes by
letting Iran dictate what comes next.
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