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Tucker Nichols

AS anticipated, the Iraq Study Group has recommended that the United States begin talks with Iran to solicit its assistance in stabilizing Iraq. This recommendation seems so sensible that the Bush administration’s past reluctance to follow it is hard to fathom. Still, administration officials are right to counter that talking to Iran is not a policy, let alone a solution to our problems in Iraq.

The real questions are these: What do we say to the Iranians if we can get them to the table? What can they do in Iraq? What would they be willing to do in Iraq? And what will they want in return?

We should have engaged Iran in Iraq years ago. Before and during the war in Afghanistan, the Iranians were quite helpful to the United States. They shared our hatred of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and they provided us with extensive assistance on intelligence, logistics, diplomacy and Afghan internal politics. After we turned our sights on Saddam Hussein, the Iranians suggested that they would be willing to cooperate on that too. Unfortunately, the Bush administration declined the offer, preferring to lump Tehran with Baghdad and Pyongyang in the “axis of evil.”

None of this should suggest that Iran was helping us for reasons other than blatant self-interest, or that it had suddenly given up its antipathy toward us. But it was demonstrating real pragmatism and being very helpful on issues of mutual concern, which should have been good enough.

Today, large numbers of Iranian intelligence agents have infiltrated Iraq, where they seem to be providing money, weapons and other supplies to virtually all of Iraq’s Shiite militias. There are reports that Hezbollah is training Iraqi Shiite militiamen in Lebanon at Iran’s behest. And the Shiite warlords all know that in an all-out civil war, Iran would be their only backer.

All of that gives the Iranians influence over the Shiite militias — influence that could be helpful to the United States as it tries to forge a new strategy toward Iraq.

We should be careful, however, not to exaggerate Iran’s influence. The problems in Iraq were not caused by the Iranians, nor can Iran solve them all.

Most Iraqis dislike the Iranians. In fact, “dislike” is too mild a term. In 2004 and early 2005, when it still seemed as if the United States-led reconstruction of Iraq might succeed, Shiite politicians were bending over backward to demonstrate that they were independent of Iran for fear their constituents would not support them otherwise.

Furthermore, while Iranian support is no doubt gratefully received, the evidence suggests that it is now more a supplement than a necessity for the major militias. At this point, the main Shiite groups — the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Mahdi Army, and the Fadhila Party among others — have considerable support among the population and are accused of making enormous amounts of money off oil smuggling and organized crime. Plus, there is no shortage of weapons in Iraq, with additional supplies readily available on the regional black market.