[Marxism] Ahmadinejad Heads to Iraq as Chairman of U.S. Joint Chiefs Visits

[Fred Feldman]

A simultaneous visit -- likely to include private contacts between
Ahmadinejad and Admiral Mullion, no matter what is said -- highlights both
the weight of Iran in Iraq, and also the reluctant, slow but unmistakable
shift toward some sort of détente with Iran. This today seems to be
unchallengeably the consensus position of the US elite, leaving aside a core
of mad dogs.

Washington can definitely gain from this, but we must never forget that this
represents a huge setback and climbdown for US imperialism in the struggles
amd bloody battles of the last decade and more. 

I note that Defense Secretary Gates now declares flatly, "We live in a
multi-polar world." But all of US military and foreign policy for the years
since the collapse of the Soviet bloc (about 18 years now) was based on
preventing this development.  Iran's ability to stand up, the product of a
deep-going national revolution, was a gain for all humanity, regardless of
the deals the bourgeois government cuts with Washington.
Fred Feldman


March 2, 2008
Ahmadinejad Heads to Iraq as Chairman of U.S. Joint Chiefs Visits 
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD — Army and police checkpoints dotted the Iraqi capital on Saturday
in preparation for a visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, which
will coincide with a visit by the chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs
of Staff. 

Adm. Mike Mullen arrived in Baghdad on Saturday on an unannounced trip to
meet with commanders and Iraqi officials before a series of briefings he is
to give President Bush in April about the future of the war effort. 

There were no plans for Admiral Mullen and Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is to arrive
on Sunday, to cross paths, and the timing of their visits appeared to be
coincidental. 

The visits come as violence, which in December reached its lowest level in
more than a year, has begun to rise. In Baghdad, suicide bombers at two pet
markets in February took the lives of nearly 100 people, and in northern
Iraq, violence in Nineveh Province, whose capital is Mosul, has risen since
late last fall, driving up the overall rate of attacks in northern Iraq,
which is now the highest in the country. 

Still, the number of violent deaths is far lower than it was last year at
this time, and sectarian violence, particularly that by Shiites aimed at
Sunnis in Baghdad, has dropped precipitously. 

The Iranian president’s trip is a historic one, the first since Iran and
Iraq fought an eight-year war in the 1980s that left more than one million
people dead. 

Speaking in Tehran on Saturday, Mr. Ahmadinejad praised and jabbed at the
United States. He said that discussions on security between the United
States and Iran “have helped stabilize conditions in Iraq a great deal.”
However, he also accused the United States of sowing dissent between Iraq
and Iran. 

American officials charge Iran with meddling in Iraq by facilitating the
importing of powerful weapons into the country and training Iraqis to set
the armor-piercing roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators. 

Speaking to reporters in Crawford, Tex., on Saturday, President Bush did not
criticize the Iraqis for inviting Mr. Ahmadinejad, but said Iraq needed to
send a clear message to Iran. “And the message needs to be, quit sending in
sophisticated equipment that’s killing our citizens,” Mr. Bush said.

Back in Tehran, Mr. Ahmadinejad rejected the accusation. “It is the American
practice to present others as guilty whenever they are defeated,” he said.
“Is it not funny that those with 160,000 forces in Iraq accuse us of
interference?” 

The visit appears to be an Iranian effort to show its support for the Iraqi
government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Both countries are run by
Shiite majorities. However, Iran is overwhelmingly Persian, while Iraq’s
Shiites are Arabs. Furthermore, Iraq is a more heterogenous state. It has a
significant Sunni minority as well as ethnic Kurds, Turkmen and other
groups. 

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s intensive security is to include more than 1,000 highly
trained pesh merga guards and as many as 30,000 Iraqi soldiers, a contingent
so large it is widely expected to immobilize a large swath of Baghdad. 

In Diyala Province, still one of the most violent areas, American forces
were detaining a man believed to be in charge of a cell that recruited women
to carry out suicide-vest bombings, the military said Saturday in a
statement.

The cell leader planned to use his wife and another woman to carry out his
next attack, the statement said. Maj. Daniel J. Meyers, a spokesman for
American forces in northern Iraq, said they captured the man after receiving
a “high level of intelligence.”


Women are being used more frequently as bombers by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia,
a homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group that American intelligence agencies
have concluded is foreign led. 

Women have carried out six attacks or attempted attacks so far this year,
according to the United States military. The bombers of the Baghdad pet
markets were two women with a history of psychiatric treatment.

Reporting was contributed by Thom Shanker and Balen Y. Younis from Baghdad,
Nazila Fathi from Tehran, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from
Diyala and Iraqi Kurdistan.