Former Iraqi Terrorist Discusses Iran & The Consequences of An American Withdrawal From Iraq

A former leader of the "Islamic Army" in Iraq appeared recently on Al-Arabiya TV where he discussed Iran's extensive involvement in Iraq, the consequences to Iraq if America withdraws, and the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda.






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Abu 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, a former leader in the "Islamic Army" in Iraq, was interviewed on Al-Arabiya TV on January 18. This from a translation by MEMRI:

Abu 'Azzam Al-Tamimi: . . . The resistance factions tended to reject any sort of occupation – whether Iranian, American, and so on. This changed once the Iranian activity and intervention in Iraq became very significant in the days of the Ja'fari government. Then, some [faction] leaders decided that we must reach a truce with the American forces, and reexamine our position with regard to the American forces, because of the Iranian intervention, which we consider to be more dangerous to Iraq than the American intervention, because occupation by a neighboring country is always more dangerous than occupation from afar.

Interviewer: Is there significant Iranian intervention?

Abu 'Azzam Al-Tamimi: Of course.

Interviewer: In what way?

Abu 'Azzam Al-Tamimi: Iran intervenes in every single detail in Iraq.

Interviewer: Whom does it support?

Abu 'Azzam Al-Tamimi: Everybody – it works with the government, with the opponents of the government, with the opponents of the government's opponents, with Al-Qaeda, with the enemies of Al-Qaeda, with the militias, with the enemies of the militias... Iran spreads its investments everywhere – with the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Kurds.

Interviewer: Al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization, which claims to be fighting those they call "the Rafidites" – how can it possibly cooperate with the Iranians?

Abu 'Azzam Al-Tamimi: Of course it can. How else can you explain the fact that a large number of Al-Qaeda's leaders live in Tehran? How else can you explain the fact that the Al-Qaeda organization targets all the countries in the world – from America to Indonesia, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, and many others – and the only country absent from this list is Iran, even though it is located between Al-Qaeda's two jaws – Iraq and Afghanistan? Of course there is a very strong alliance between Al-Qaeda and Iran. There is a lot of evidence of this alliance. Iran invests in everybody in order to defend itself and its interests, and this may be legitimate, because the Iranian political regime is being targeted by...

Interviewer: What does Al-Qaeda stand to gain from its alliance with the Iranians?

Abu 'Azzam Al-Tamimi: It gets a safe haven for its leaders. No other country can give refuge to Al-Qaeda's leaders or cadres. [Iran] provides Al-Qaeda with bases and financing. Al-Qaeda is broke. It has no money now. The sources of finances in the Gulf have been bled almost completely dry. So who finances them? Iran. . .

Personally, I do not deem the American presence in Iraq a negative thing anymore. I believe an American withdrawal from Iraq at this point would spell disaster, because Iraq would then fall completely under Iranian influence – perhaps not only Iraq, but the entire region.

Read the entire transcript here. I have been harping on this point repeatedly in this blog. We face two enemies in radical Islam, with the long term threat coming from an aggressive Iranian theocracy soon to be nuclear armed (as even our spy chief, Mike McConnell now admits) The theocracy is deeply involved in Iraq and at war with us there. It is inexplicable why this is being downplayed by our State Deptartment - who are at odds with our military. A withdrawal from Iraq would be abandoning the country to Iran and an existential defeat in the war on terror. If radical Islam is to be stopped, the key ultimately lies with defeating the radical Khomeinist theocracy in Iran.