Fostering Chaos: Iran, the Sunnis, and Iraq
By Aaron Mannes
Eli Lake, of the The New York Sun, reports that documents captured from Iranian operatives in Iraq indicate that Iran has been supporting Sunni jihadists in Iraq. There have been other hints of this support. Reports on the IEDs have noted obliquely that the highest quality explosives come from Iran, and Hezbollah has been deploying IEDs against Israel since the 1990s.
Considering the well-known Iranian support for the Shiite militias (including Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, Abd al-Aziz Hakim’s SCIRI, and al-Dawa) and the bloody sectarian fighting between Shia and Sunnis, Iranian support for Sunni jihadis seems counter-intuitive. While the veracity of the report is not yet certain, seen in the context for Iranian support for terrorism elsewhere, a Iranian link to the Sunni insurgency has precedent. Not only, has Iran been willing to support Sunnis, Iran has frequently taken complex, multi-pronged approaches in their support for terrorism. This is approach particularly evident in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, where it has been highly effective in expanding Iranian influence.
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