Australian Penthouse

His book See No Evil provided a frank and scathing look at the CIA’s flawed approach to the war on terrorism, and inspired the movie, Syriana. Now, former CIA Middle East specialist, Robert Baer, turns his focus to Iraq, and Iran’s new claim to power.
INTERVIEW: Suzan Ryan

You’ve said that Iraq, as we know it as a country, is gone. What do you foresee happening: more annexing by Iran of major economic cities such as Basra?

More annexing, and I think we’re gonna see a relationship like what the United States has with Canada, where Canada really can’t afford to challenge us on national security issues. Our security is intimately attached, and I think we’re gonna find that with Iraq and Iran.

You say Iraq’s factions were held together as a nation by sheer force via the Iraqi Army, which makes our ‘fight-depose-liberate’ strategy short-sighted and ultimately damaging…

Absolutely. It comes down to Iraq being an artificial country. Afghanistan and Pakistan are artificial countries as well. We should have seen, especially since we imposed [free] elections in Iraq in 2005, that they would have a Shia majority, and they did, a sectarian group, and the most organised were the guys who’ve been in Iran all these years. It was nuts. They were just better organised.

Considering the west’s experience with guerrilla tactics – the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Vietcong in Vietnam – our failure to understand this type of warfare is frighteningly ignorant.

Yes, because foreign policy isn’t taken seriously here. If we avoid a war with Iran, then someone else is gonna have to do it. For me, this book was so obvious. I’ve followed Iran for 30 years, and based on intelligence we shared with Australia, I came to an absolutely clear conclusion: that people are hard-wired for dishonesty and deception, and this will all come to a crushing end.

Is America’s relative youth and naïveté as a country partly to blame?

It’s ideological, that’s the problem: that there is such a thing as ‘American exceptionalism’; we can improve the world, we can perfect it, we can impose the American way of life. It’s an arrogance [and] truly a religious type of belief that as the world, as history, progresses, that “God is on our side”. It’s a Jacobin/Christian view that man is perfectible; that we’re obligated to do it; that we are right.

The west did the same thing with Russia. As the country lurched towards dissolution, we overestimated its army, its nukes, its space program, and it couldn’t even feed its own people.

Yeah, and we had all their rocket plans from the 60s, and their designs were all flawed, but no-one wanted to believe the CIA.

With Iran, [the west is] saying, “Look at the price of oil, that’s gonna take the wind out of their empire.” Well, it didn’t, not even in 2000 when oil was US$10 a barrel. The US$200 million Iran is putting into Lebanon [to fund Hezbollah], that money is not disappearing in pockets; it goes a long way, and it’s gonna go a long way in Iraq. Americans have taught the Iraqis more about corruption than they thought they could ever learn. The Iraqis I talked to are stunned with the corruption in the American occupation.

Instead of backing Saudi Arabia and Israel as regional powers, should we be supporting Iran?

Absolutely. Iran can’t believe how foolish we are in supporting such shaky economies, and to continually show such short-sightedness in policy. They believe that theirs is the only country with the power, outlook and natural resources to be playing in the big game. We did them a favour in removing Saddam, now the millions of exiled Shia are returning to Iraq and establishing themselves. In fact, in some Iraqi cites, such as Basra, the Iranian Rial has taken over as the accepted currency.

But isn’t Basra a mere chess piece for Iran, a step forward on the march?

It’s a step on the march, but what they’re gonna do is put [the annexed regions of] Iraq forward as a beacon to the Arab Shia, as in, “Look, these guys have their own country, and it’s thanks to us.” And Lebanon, if the demographics continue, is gonna become a Shia country backed by Iran, with an important Christian alliance.

The Iranians are saying, “Who is protecting the Christians in the world? It’s us. Who is killing them? American allies – the Wahhabi [Saudis]“. The Iranians don’t care; they let Christian churches [operate] in Tehran, they are completely ecumenical when it comes to that. They have a huge Jewish community which they protect, and it’s so weird because in Saudi Arabia you can’t even put out a Christmas tree without being picked up by the religious police, yet in Iran you can dress as Santa Claus and drive around Tehran for all they care.

The Iranians do have a pseudo democracy there, and yes there is a huge problem with unemployment and inflation, and yes the mullah’s could be edged out, but you’re gonna find the liberals, the younger students, are gonna share the same feelings about the Shia in Iraq. They’re not gonna pull out; it’s not gonna happen.

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