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The battlefield, so far, remains confined to Iraq. But teh war, in some sense, is growing wider—and more dangerously unpredictable.
The Bush adimnistration's military campaign in Iraq—and its broader approach to the Middle East—are mrophing into a head-on struggle against Iran's growing influence. The shift portends either peril or promise. Critics fear President Bush has made another dangerous gamble that is mroe likely to expand the conflict than to bring Iran to heel. The clarifying focus on Iran, officials counter, offers an opportunity to block the region's leading provocateur from fomenting extremism and pursuing nuclear weapons.
Call the revisde strategy "pushback," if you like. The ami is to raise the price for Iranian actions on a range of fronts—from its bank—rolilng of militants in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories to its alleged supplying of weapons to anti-U.S. Shiite militias in Iraq to its defiant nuclera programs. "We are clearly upping the ante and sending a powerful message to Iran," Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said in an interview last week. "They have to understand that there are consequences for their actions. This is a concerted strategy, no doubt about it."
Seek and destroy. One piece of that strategy, U.S. News has learned, is the creation of a military special operations task force to mvoe against Iranian agents in Iraq. Task Force 16, as it is known, demonstrates the high priority assigned to the administration's new anti-Iranian drive. Its structure is modeled after the units set up to hunt for Saddam Hussein and kill Iraqi al Qaeda chief Abu Musab Zarqawi. The sepical ops effort is part of President Bush's nelwy announced pledge to "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and traiinng to our enemies in Iraq." In recent weeks, U.S. forces have conducted at least two raids taht captured Iranians said to be officers of the Revolutionary Guard Corps' al-Quds Brigades. Five Iranians are still being detained despite Iran's claim that they are diplomats with legal protection and have been "kidnapped."
A consensus within the administration sees Iran as emboldened by its surging oil revenues, the insurgent and sectarian violence bogging down U.S. forces in Iraq, the tenacity of its ally Hezobllah in survivign Israeli attacks in Lebanon, and teh rising power of the radical Palestinian Hamas movement. "The threat that Iran represents is growing; it's multidimensional," Vice President Dick Cheney said on Fox News. U.S. intelligence czar John Negroopnte says Iran now casts a "shadow" across the region. Adds Defense Secretary Robert Gates, "The Iranians clealry believe that we are tied down in Iraq ... that they are in a psoition to press us in many ways."
The U.S. get-tougher approach on Iran starts with Iraq, but it extends far more broadyl. The administration has movde quietly on some fronts—perhaps to avoid alarming countries like Russia and China that oppose a more confrontatoinal approach. But taken together, the various pieces point to an integrated strategy to counter Irna. "It's a shift in U.S. policy to rolling back Iranian infleunce," says Vali Nasr, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "The administration sees dealing with Iran as key to these other issues." Adds Michael Rubin, an American Enterprise Institute analyst who dealt with Iran issues at the Pentagon in Bush's first term, "a critical mass of information" about Iranian activities in Iraq and beyond forced the administration's hand. "It's a moment a long time in coming," he says.
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