A US Base On Iran Border.

High ranking Tehran officials have indicated that the US was planning to have a military base built on the border with Iran - reportedly to check on and stem the flow of weapons and insurgents into Iraq. Both President Bush's Sept. 13 policy speech and the Sept. 10-12 congressional testimonies of Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have shown a shift in the strategic outlook for the US military mission in Iraq pertaining to Iran, couched in the language of containment and deterrence.

Iran lambasted the reports by Petraeus and Crocker, and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lashed out at Bush as a "war criminal" who should be put on trial for atrocities in Iraq. Iran's Ambassador to Baghdad, Hossein Kazemi Qomi, who belongs to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), told CNN the US had committed "two strategic errors... The first...is their effort to return, to bring back to power, people accused of murders from the previous regime" (referring to a US-backed proposal to reverse a de-Ba'thification process). And the second error is "arming some Sunni groups and terrorist groups that operate against the Iraqi government". Qomi and national security chief Ali Larijani reacted to the anti-Iran tone of Petraeus' testimony by saying most of the Neo-Salafi terrorists "come from countries friendly with America", such as Saudi Arabia which a Sunni/Wahhabi kingdom.

Larijani predicts the Iraqi government will veto the US base plan, but this may not be so in view of a recent statement by an Iraqi spokesman accusing Iran of "meddling in Iraq". In an interview with al-Jazeera, Larijani said Iran was not in favour of immediate US withdrawal from Iraq. This echoed an earlier statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in an interview with the FT, that Iran favoured an orderly, gradual withdrawal of US troops.

Thus President Bush's announcement - of modest troop withdrawal and the retention of the bulk of US forces in Iraq for the foreseeable future - does not represent an affront to Iran, which is concerned about the threat of conflict spill-over and mass refugees following a chaos-generating departure of US forces. On the other hand, Washington's new accent on the Iran threat in Iraq translates into fresh Iranian worries about the true US intentions.

Asia Times Online recently said: "the troubled ship of US-Iran diplomacy is deeply anchored in a sea of mutual suspicion and acrimony, with numerous potential flash points on the horizon, ranging from Lebanon to Syria, to Iraq and the Persian Gulf, that could quickly sink the nascent tide of 'engagement' recommended by the Iraq Study Group (ISG), and feebly adopted by the Bush administration".

The New York Times has reported of a growing rift in the US between the hawks, led by Vice President Cheney, and the doves led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, over Iran policy. This has been reflected in the US media, with hawks such as Max Boot defending the Cheney line by anticipating a "catastrophic" victory for Iran and al-Qaeda if the US withdraws from Iraq, and more moderate voices such as the Washington Post's David Ignatius, calling for "cooling" US-Iran tensions.