USA vs. Iran : India vs. Pakistan Anew?

The scenario: Militants wage a proxy war for a budding nuclear power, pinning down a more formidable enemy army. If that appears to be the Iranian game-plan in Iraq, it isn't an original one. The paradigm for the emerging U.S.-Iranian contest has clear parallels with the struggle between Pakistan and India.

As early as 1990, a full eight years before the subcontinent went nuclear, Pakistani military leaders began to view the massive army India kept at the border less as potential invaders and more as a target. The likely reason: Islamabad felt empowered by its secret nuclear weapons program. Even as a hypothetical shield against Indian retaliation, it lessened the Pakistani military's sense of vulnerability. Soon, militants trained and armed by Pakistan began appearing in Indian territory in increasing numbers, and violence spiked. By 1998, when both India and Pakistan formally unveiled their nuclear arsenals, India and Pakistan showed how regional rivals could wage up-close, bloody struggles against each other — both in conventional and asymmetrical warfare — undeterred by the specter of a nuclear exchange.

The view from Tehran these days probably looks much like the view from Islamabad in the early 1990s. By most estimates, Iran is now roughly five years away from having nuclear weapons. The United States, a nuclear power and sworn enemy, has tens of thousands of troops at Iran's borders. The mullahs and military strategists in Tehran undoubtedly realize that they cannot defeat the U.S. forces arrayed against them, just as military leaders in Islamabad knew they could not beat the Indian forces at Pakistan's border. Courting all-out war is obviously a mistake for Iran. But so is doing nothing, as Washington increases the number of troops in Iraq and foments international opposition to Iran's nuclear program. Faced with such a situation, it's easy to see how hawkish elements of the Iranian government find the prospect of arming and training guerrillas in Iraq appealing. The expectation of having nuclear wapons just a few years from now — which would mean any strike against Iran could trigger retaliation against the attacker or its allies — may give Tehran's strategists a sense of confidence in supporting bolder and bolder assaults. It is, in effect, a nuclear umbrella under which Iran can sponsor guerrilla warfare.

U.S. military officials have aired their strongest accusations yet against Iran, saying 170 troops from the U.S.-led force in Iraq have died as a result of sophisticated bombs that could be traced back to Iran. The claim follows a string of incidents in Iraq involving suspected Iranian agents over the past two months. In December, American forces announced the capture of four Iranians, two of whom are thought to be members of the Quds Force, Iran's paramilitary arm around the Middle East. Then, on Jan. 11, U.S. forces in Iraq raided a house in Irbil, capturing a number of other alleged Iranian operatives. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said one of the men arrested in that raid was the director of operations for the Quds Force. Many observers believe the Quds Force was responsible for an attack on U.S. troops Jan. 20 in Karbala, in which four American soldiers were kidnapped and murdered, though just who carried out the Karbala murders remains unclear.

All of this, combined with longstanding U.S. suspicions of Iran, are following the pattern of hostility between India and Pakistan, two countries who remain locked in a bloody struggle even now. Sometimes India and Pakistan fight each other directly with their militaries in border skirmishes and artillery duels. More often the fighting goes on as part of a kind of shadow war in which Indian forces struggle to capture and kill militants linked to Pakistan in various ways. The United States and Iran appear to be following a similar path together in Iraq.

reference : india today