TIME: What is Iran’s Man
in Iraq After?
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
In an exclusive interview, Tehran’s Hassan Kazemi
Ghomi takes on Washington and counters U.S. claims
that he and his country are subverting the Baghdad
government.
By
MICHAEL WARE / BAGHDAD
What is Tehran's main man in Iraq up to? The U.S.
military, which claims Iranian special forces and
intelligence operatives have infiltrated Iraq,
insinuates that Hassan Kazemi Ghomi, the charge
d'affaires of the Iranian embassy, is intent on
undermining Washington's mission in Baghdad. Indeed,
U.S. military intelligence and the American-backed
Iraqi National Intelligence Service told TIME that
Ghomi is a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps' elite Quds Force, a special forces outfit much
like the Green Berets, with specialized skills in
working with local forces and militias. A senior U.S.
military intelligence officer claims "Ghomi is Quds
Force," and part of a "full-spectrum effort" by the
Revolutionary Guards to garner influence in Iraq. But
in an interview with TIME, Ghomi, who rarely talks
with the Western press, denied he is playing a
military role in Iraq. He says most of his generation
of government officials served, as did he, in the
Revolutionary Guards' Baseej (volunteer) units during
the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s but explains that "I
stopped my military service years ago." (The Baseej
continue to be a major pillar of support for Iran's
hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.) The
diplomat, however, suggested that Iran would prove a
better partner and guarantor of Iraqi stability than
the U.S.
Ghomi denied U.S. claims that his country's special
forces were operating inside Iraq or that Iran's
military was aiding the insurgency with ever more
sophisticated weapons. He hinted at Iran's growing
ambitions as a regional power with references to its
ability to affect the security of the Persian Gulf,
echoing the sentiments of top military commanders in
Iran. At the same time, he outlined a number of
conditions for the unprecedented talks proposed with
his American counterpart. "We do not deny America has
interests here [in Iraq] and we do not act as a
barrier to those interests, but we do not take orders
from the Americans," he told TIME, speaking from
within his heavily-fortified embassy.
Ghomi is not likely to suffer any anxiety over U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's threat of
"strong action" against Iran in the U.N. Security
Council in response to the news that Tehran had
finally enriched a small quantity of uranium. Ghomi
made it clear his government does not take kindly to
being told what to do. Just as no one should
interfere the internal affairs of Iraq, he said, the
U.S. should not contemplate interfering in Iran.
"It's our position that we want to be a sovereign and
independent country, but the Americans seem to think
they know better than us, that they know our own mind
and that we do not want nuclear weapons," he said.
Iranian policy, he says, is to stabilize the nascent
government in Baghdad, not to disrupt it. "Security
[in Iraq] is good for us because then there's no
pretext for foreign troops to remain," he said. If
Washington had proof that Iranian forces were
operational in Iraq, then it should be produced, he
insisted. Instead, he says, it is time for Tehran and
Baghdad to establish a strong strategic relationship,
replete with intelligence sharing and Iranian
assistance in building up the Iraqi security forces,
roles the U.S. currently holds a monopoly over. "What
we actually want inside Iraq today is to contribute
to the formation of the government" said the
diplomat, staking out what until now has been the
province of U.S. and British advisors.
Describing Iran as "a potential power in the region,
and an essential element for security in the region,"
Ghomi says if America stopped treating Tehran as an
enemy it could deliver results "in the sensitive
geopolitical situation in the Middle East." He also
laid out a number of conditions necessary for the
proposed talks with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad
to proceed. Expecting the meeting to take place in
Iraq, Ghomi says talks could not proceed without a
representative of the Iraqi government present; he
also said that an agenda had to be agreed on in
advance and made public beforehand, "not kept behind
closed doors." And he stressed that Iran would want
the outcome of the discussions to be made public
immediately afterwards. "We will definitely be
reporting to the countries of the region about the
result of these negotiations," he says.