West Asia At War: Repression, Resistance and Great Power Games

by Talmiz Ahmad

this point, Iranian leaders believed that their cooperative role in Afghanistan would help improve ties with the US. Hence, Bush’s inclusion of the country in the ‘axis of evil’ in his State of the Union address came as a rude shock. It undermined Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s moderate approach and strengthened the hands of the hardliners, who proclaimed that the US just could not be trusted. However, as the Americans prepared for the attack on Iraq, the clandestine diplomatic dialogue was resumed. Iran also provided some assistance to the US in Iraq by persuading its Shia supporters to back the American-led political process rather than offer resistance to the occupation.10 Israel was, of course, the ‘elephant in the room’ during these diplomatic interactions. The possibility of a US–Iran rapprochement was seen in Tel Aviv as a threat to its interests and led to a major lobbying effort by its officials to counter it, with the full backing of its neocon allies.