Up until three years ago, Sudan and Iran were in cahoots in shared subversive-terrorist activity. The Islamic republic shelled out hefty sums of cash to the Khartoum government for new roads and bridges to develop the country, as well as sending pilots to fight in Khartoum’s war against the south Sudanese secessionists.During Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir’s last month visit to Tehran decisions where made for Iran to send its atomic centrifuges. plus Revolutionary Guards to Sudan. Sudanese president’s agreed to safely store Iran’s most sensitive nuclear equipment, including its turbo speed P-2 centrifuges, against a potential US or Israeli attack. In return, Bashir was promised military aid from Tehran to speed up government operations to crush the Darfur rebellion.
Bashir was the first foreign leader ever invited to tour Iran’s nuclear installations at Isfahan. And the secret deal on the transfer of Iran’s nuclear equipment was implicitly touched on in the public statements winding up their talks. On April 24, Iran’s supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said quite openly that the nuclear capabilities of Iranian scientists were “one example of the numerous scientific movements in the country,” adding mystifyingly: “The Islamic Republic is ready to transfer this experience and the technology and knowledge of its scientists to its neighbors.”In return, the Sudanese president praised Iran’s enrichment of uranium as a “great victory for the Islamic world.”
Lining up with Iran’s virulent anti-West and anti-Israel line, Bashir went on to accuse the Western media of “propaganda against Muslims in recent months.” He said developments in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan and the US and Israel’s “efforts to cause discord in Syria and Lebanon as well as Iran’s nuclear issue” were among instances of “enemy moves to discredit Muslims.” The Sudanese president congratulated the Iranian government and people on their “recent nuclear achievement.” He said his country believes that the “God Almighty has been helping Iran and no one can harm that country.”
A first Iranian contingent which landed in Khartoum this week, is led by Lt.-Col. Asghar Mobarake and accompanied by a cleric, Hojat-Ol Eslam Mostafa Ramazani, who is head of the Revolutionary Guards intelligence division RGID.
Tehran has code-named its Sudan operation Zolfagha, for the two-edged sword wielded by the Shiites’ most revered saint, Imam Ali. The troops are members of the 3rd Brigade of the 7th RG unit called Vali E-Asar, after one of the titles borne by the Mahdi, the Shiite messiah. Bashar intends deploying the Iranian units without delay at the Mellit base in western Darfur, our sources reveal. Their officers have been granted permission in advance to send upon request small reconnaissance bands into Chad, and deploy them at particularly inaccessible Darfur rebel sanctuaries, such as Am Timan in the Saalamat province of eastern Chad.
The Iranian commanders dispatched to Sudan have orders to cooperate with an officer of the Russian GRU military intelligence, known only as “Captain Razhabov,” who is posted under cover at the airfield of Nyala in western Darfur, to conduct operational liaison with the Khartoum-backed Arab militias, such as the janjaweed.
Furthermore, as mentioned for the first time here, Washington is reassessing the need for an American presence in the Persian Gulf region. The argument: What is the point of America sinking enormous economic and military resources in defending the Persian Gulf when most of the region’s oil exports are destined for industrialized China, Japan and India, the United States’ leading trade and industrial competitors?
Where is the sense in America committing a vast investment to the Gulf, when it thereby saps its own strength and vitalizes its rivals? When Iran threatens to bottle up the Strait of Hormuz, why should the American navy and air forces be responsible for keeping it open? Responsibility for keeping this oil route free and open should rest with the Chinese, Japanese and Indian navies, whose economies would be mortally affected by a blockade.
Also in Iraq, The United States will not permit its forces to remain as targets for guerrillas, although the Sunnis and Shia might find this useful. Therefore, there will be a withdrawal, with a substantial drawdown this year. However, the Sunnis and Kurds both want an American force to remain, and the Americans want that, too. The Iranians and Iraqi Shia want the Americans out earlier. So the timing is one issue to negotiate.
The other issue is oil -- how the revenues and resources are divided up among the three ethnic communities. As we have said, that is about money and, when it gets down to that, compromise is possible. However, the Sunnis and Kurds are afraid of Shiite strength, which means they want the Americans to remain in place. The Shia can charge for that in terms of oil revenues. Treaties have been based on less.
The problem with the endgame in Iraq is not so much the divergence of interests among the players -- they tend to converge now more than to diverge. The problem is that there are so many parties to the negotiations and that these parties are themselves divided, the Americans not least among them. In other words, there are too many players to create a stable basis for negotiations. On the one side, reality pulls them together; on the other side, the sheer mechanics of the negotiation are mind-boggling.
We think that something will be worked out, simply because the logic of each player requires a settlement. It will result in a diminishment of violence, not its elimination. That is the best that can be hoped for. But we also believe that the train is leaving the station. If an agreement cannot be reached now that allows for a phased and managed withdrawal of U.S. forces, then the only remaining options for the United States will be to continue to fight a counterinsurgency indefinitely, with insufficient force, or a unilateral withdrawal.