Iraqi oil and the regime of Iran

Despite some of the views that encourage the direct Iran-USA talks on the assumption that the Iranian regime, just like the USA, is interested in stability of Iraq, the regime of Iran is not interested at all to see stability in Iraq. The stability of Iraq will result in a situation that Iranian regime hates to see that. On the other side, instability of Iraq paves the way for all kinds of interventions by the Iranian regime in that country.

In a nutshell, the stability in Iraq will mean: 1- A success for the American model in the Middle East. The US government, since the declaration of the Plan for the Greater Middle East, has tried to portray that it was following a new policy in the Middle East based on expansion of democracy and rule of law (as opposed to the previous policies that mainly relied on supporting the oppressive regimes as long as they served the US interests in the region). Iraq is the most important place for the testing and appraisal of this policy, not only for the United States, but also for the other countries of the world, especially in the Middle East region.

Bahman Aghai Diba is consultant to the World Resources Company in the Washington DC area
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