Los Angeles Times
July 25, 2004
The report of the independent 9/11 commission, aside from demolishing the idea
that Iraq collaborated with Al Qaeda, points the finger elsewhere —
including at Tehran. Not only was Iran potentially in league with Al Qaeda in
the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 Americans and wounded 372,
says the report released Thursday, but it also probably "facilitated the transit
of Al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11." Iran may not have
been aware of the 9/11 plot — it denied any such knowledge Thursday and
said it had arrested "a large number" of Al Qaeda members — but it
probably rendered vital assistance. It doesn't take precise knowledge of a
crime to turn you into an accomplice.
The Iran-Al Qaeda link is thinner
than Iran's nuclear ambitions, but it's further evidence that the Bush
administration chose to see only what would bolster its obsession with toppling
Saddam Hussein. Such hypocrisy has been at the heart of U.S. relations with
Iraq and Iran for dec ades, often with lethal consequences.
During the
1980s, the Reagan administration cozied up to Hussein even as he was gassing
Iranian soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war. At the same time, the White House went
ahead with the so-called Iran-Contra deal, which supplied the mullahs with arms
(as well as a Bible signed by President Reagan and a cake that were supposed to
demonstrate U.S. goodwill) as part of a complicated scheme to fund Nicaraguan
anti-communist Contra rebels. At the time, Congress forbade direct U.S. aid to
the Contras.
Then, in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, President
George H.W. Bush stood by listlessly as Hussein used helicopter gunships to gas
Kurds and Shiites. More than a decade later, President George W. Bush went to
war to destroy those weapons of mass destruction, after they no longer
existed.
Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company,
Halliburton, is being investigated by a grand jury for possibly violating
federal sanctions by operating in Iran dur ing Cheney's time as CEO. Today,
Cheney is the last major holdout claiming extensive Al Qaeda ties with
Hussein.
Here's the real story: Overthrowing Hussein has opened up Iraq
to Iran, which has, among other things, allowed Al Qaeda agents to infiltrate
Iraq. The Iraqi defense and interior ministers both accuse Iran of fomenting
terrorism and have threatened military retaliation inside Iran.
With
the U.S. military stretched tightly, it has no capability to back up such
bluster even if it wanted to. Washington already has to turn a half-blind eye
to the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and ignore the Taliban ties of many
Pakistani officials and warlords.
Perhaps Iran really is reforming
internally, as a newly released Council on Foreign Relations study headed by
former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA Director
Robert M. Gates argues. Perhaps the U.S. should more urgently seek dialogue
with the government in Tehran and hope that diplomacy will produce better
results than it has so far.
Given the resources the administration has
squandered in Iraq, it might have no other choice.