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al-Hakkim says. One Pentagon option includes a pincer operation toward Baghdad, with 50,000 American troops.
moving from the south with SCIRI's Shia Muslim guerrillas and 50,000 more moving from the north with Kurdish
fighferS~
Such plans are "very far-fetched" and a "bad idea," al-Hakkim says, his cleric's face framed by a gray beard. "The best
thing the US can do is force the regime not to use its heavy weapons against the people, like they did in Kosovo. Then
the Iraqi people can bring change-it must be done by the Iraqis themselves."
Few doubt growing American resolve against Iraq, though no evidence has emerged that Baghdad was involved in
the Sept. 11 attacks, or in any terroristact for the past decade. But Iraq is clearly a target. US Secretary of State Colin
Powell toid the Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday there are no "plans" to attack North Korea or Iran, but that Iraq
was a special case.
Powell said a "regime change" in Iraq, however, "would be in the best interests of the region." He says Mr. Bush is
considering "the most serious set of options one might imagine." Vice President Dick Cheney is to make a nine-nation
Mideast tour in March to solidify allied support for any moves against Iraq.
Few armed opponents of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein have suffered as much as Iraq's southern Shia Muslims.
They have seen their religious leaders assassinated, their marshes - both their economic lifeline and hidïng place -
dramed, and their 199i uprising put down mercilessly with a toxic cocktail of chemicàl weapons.
So few might be so willing - after spilling blood for years to topple the Iraqi leader - to embrace Washington's growing
plans to do just that. Contacts between SCOO and US officials outside Iran had warmed during the Afghan campaign,
like those between the US and Iran. American diplomats had been increasing contacts for months.
"They were making good progress. It even looked like SCOO might take US money for the first time, as a gesture of
good will," says Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. "There was a
minor love-fest going on in London, until the 'axis of evil' speech. We can forget about that now - it's not going to
happen."
The SCIRI is now warning
that US troops in Iraq would be a "mistake."
But as a serious threat to Baghdad,
SClRI has "petered out" in recent years, says Mr. Dodge.
SCIRI is not a fighting force - like the Iran- and US-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan - that could hold front
lines. "It was always a hit-and-run organization," Dodge says. The role it could have played in US strategy may
remain a mystery because" 'axis of evil' has now alienated any support that may have been building in Tehran [to
help the US topple Hussein]." Afghanistan is also a sore point: "Iran had a bad experience at the end of the Afghan
war," says Dodge. "They helped, but at the end, the US tried to foist a U5-client state on Iran. They are not going to
let that happen in Iraq."
On the surface, the aims of SCOO, Iran, and the US appear to coincide in Iraq. Few dislike Baghdad's rulers more than
the Iranians. The Iran-Iraq war. of the 1980s was started by Saddam Hussein in the early days of Iran's Islamic
Revolution. Few who lived in Tehran at the time forget the rocketing of the capital. Few on the front lines forget how
Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian troops - the spur for Iran's own missile and chemical weapons production.
Still, Iran and SCOO - which is overseen by Iranian security forces - are trying to gauge the impact of America'ssaberrattling
against Iraq, and weigh up their own interests. The bottom line: what is the endgame?
"They all wish to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but who will replace him?" says an Iranian analyst who asked not to be
named. "The US wants a pro-US government there, but Iran wants a pro-Iran Islamic state and to have influence
there." Ayatollah al-Hakkim insists that SCOO wants to create a democratic regime in Iraq that includes all its ethnic
and religious groups. More than 60 percent of Iraqis share the Shia branch of Islam, along with Iran.
But that mix has caused anxiety in the past. Swift calculations by the US and Saudi Arabia at the end of the Gulf War
in 1991 - when Kurdish peshmerga fighters captured all of northern Iraq and marched toward Baghdad, and Shia
rebels swept up from the south - first raised hopes, and then dashed them.
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