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Middle East Review of International Affairs
The Nearest and Dearest Enemy: Iran after the Iraq War
by Abbas William Samii
*
Abstract
Tehran's stand towards events in Iraq developed chronologically and against a backdrop of continuing hostility to the United States. From 2001 until the beginning of Operation Iraq Freedom in March 2003, Iran called for resolution of the issue through international organizations, while simultaneously interacting with Washington, Baghdad, and the Iraqi opposition. The next stage was marked by allegations of Iranian support for Iraqi insurgents. These allegations continued in the third stage, from July 2003 to the present, as did a warming of Tehran-Baghdad relations. With the end of the war in Iraq, Iran found itself surrounded on all sides by what it perceives as its greatest enemy — the United States. It was also faced with the possibility of Kurdish autonomy and being surpassed by Iraq as the center of Shi'a Islam.
This article was originally written for a project and conference on "After the Iraq War: Strategic and Political Changes in Europe and the Middle East," co-sponsored by the GLORIA Center and The Military Centre for Strategic Studies (CeMiSS) of Italy.
Full Text (PDF, 25 pages, 135.5 KB)
Note *: Dr. Abbas William Samii is the Regional Analysis Coordinator for Southwest Asia and the Middle East at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the position of RFE/RL. Earlier research articles by Samii have been published in MERIA, Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, Middle Eastern Studies, Hoover Digest, Brown Journal of World Affairs, TransnationalOrganized Crime, Caspian Crossroads, and Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. He also has written chapters for several books, including The Region at the Center of the World: Crises and Quandaries in the Contemporary Persian Gulf, Barry Rubin, ed. (London: Frank Cass, 2002), and Nuclear Iran: Devising A Strategy Beyond Denial, Henry Sokolski and Patrick Clawson, eds. (U.S. Army War College, 2004).