Who's Behind the Proxy Wars

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Iran is conducting a proxy war against the United States in Iraq,
declared Ambassador Ryan Crocker last week.

How? Gen. David Petraeus explained. The Quds Force of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah are arming, training and
directing the Shia militia fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces in Basra
and firing rockets into the Green Zone. Said Petraeus, the Quds
Force is responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers.

If true, these are acts of war from a privileged sanctuary. And
Bush would be as justified in attacking these Iranian base camps as
was Nixon in ordering U.S. forces to clean out the North Vietnamese
sanctuaries in Cambodia.

While there is no reason to question the truth of what Petraeus and
Crocker allege, this proxy war raises a question. What is Tehran's
motive?

Iran, after all, is the principal beneficiary of the U.S. invasion
that dethroned its enemy Saddam, ended the Sunni Baath Party's
monopoly of power and opened the door to Shia politicians with
strong ties to Tehran. The regime in the Green Zone is the same
regime that rolled out a red carpet for President Ahmadinejad.

Why, then, would Iran bloody it up? Why, when things are going
Iran's way in Iraq, would it risk war with the United States over
Iraq?

The April 16 Los Angeles Times offers an answer. Iran's proxy war
against us in Iraq may be Tehran's response to a U.S. proxy war
being waged against Iran. Ahmadinejad may be exacting blood for
blood.

According to Times' writer Borzou Daragahi, Iran believes the
United States is behind groups that are systematically killing
Iranians along the border.

One such group is the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or PEJAK,
which is linked to the PKK that has conducted a terrorist war in
Turkey and is considered by the United States a terrorist
organization. The founder of PEJAK is Osman Ocalan, brother of the
founder of the PKK, who is now serving a life sentence in a Turkish
prison.

As Turkey retaliates against the PKK with artillery fire and raids
into Kurdistan, Iranians are now doing the same.

A second group, regarded by both the United States and Iran as
terrorist, is the Mujahedin Khalq, a cult-like group, operating
inside Iraq on the Iranian border. Iranians also believe the United
States is behind attacks in the oil-rich and Arab Khuzestan region
of southwest Iran.

And, as Daragahi reports, "Baluch militants have killed dozens of
members of Iran's security forces, including 11 elite Revolutionary
Guard in a car bomb attack last year in Zahedan, a town near the
border with Pakistan and Afghanistan." Jundallah, or God's Party,
claimed responsibility for that attack.

Last year also, a Kurdish woman killed several Iranian officers and
soldiers in a suicide bombing. According to Daragahi, "Iraqi Kurds
say perceived U.S. support for PEJAK and other anti-Iranian groups
prompted Iranians to reactivate Ansar al Islam, a Sunni Muslim
group with ties to al-Qaida that has been launching attacks against
Kurdish officials."

The danger here is that these proxy wars could explode into U.S.
air attacks on the Quds Force, followed by Iranian retaliation
against U.S. troops, followed by U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear
facilities and a third U.S. war in the Middle East, dropped into
the lap of an overstretched U.S. military and onto the desk of the
next president.

In his speech last week, Bush warned that the regime in Tehran "has
a choice to make," and if "Iran makes the wrong choice, America
will act to protect our interests, and our troops and our Iraqi
partners" -- i.e., this is Tehran's last warning.

Query: Where is the Congress of the United States? It alone has the
power to authorize or declare a war of the magnitude toward which
we may be headed because of proxy wars about which the American
people know next to nothing.

Up on Capitol Hill, GOP Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina is
seeking to rewrite the War Powers Act to ensure that -- if the
United States goes to war again -- it be the "collective judgment"
of both elected branches, as the Founding Fathers intended.

Needed now are congressional hearings to determine if President
Bush has authorized a proxy war against Iran -- by funding or
arming guerrillas to attack the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and if
that is what is behind the IRG-backed attacks on U.S. forces.

Even before such hearings, both Houses should pass a joint
resolution declaring that no appropriated funds may be used for any
pre-emptive U.S. air strikes on Iran -- unless and until Congress
has authorized such acts of war. If we are headed for war with
Iran, it should be the collective judgment of all the nation's
elected leadership, and not done on the whim of a lame-duck
president unsure about his place in history.

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