Somalia in the “war on terror”
By David Stewart Hurrell
January 30 2008
By David Stewart Hurrell
January 30 2008
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Background
With the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, Somalia was without central governance. In some regions the country experienced internecine warfare between clans batting over territory and resources. The situation was particularly diabolical in the early nineties and led to the infamous UN/US intervention which began as a humanitarian operation but ended up in warfare between American troops and Somali soldiers, with the US evacuating their embassies and withdrawing from the region entirely. The UN left in 1995.
What we know as Somalia today comprises just over a third of what was Somalia 20 years ago. Since 1991, Somaliland, in the north-east, ruled by the Ishaaq Clan, declared its independence. Puntland, controlled by the Darod Clan, which roughly occupies the tip of the Horn of Africa, declared autonomous rule in 1998 but maintained that it would fall under central government rule once a credible regime was established. The Puntland government has been closely allied with the superimposed TFG since early 2007. The Transitional Federal Government was created in 2004 in Kenya. It was created with the support of the Government of Kenya and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was elected president of the TFG and ruled until December 2008 when he resigned and was replaced by interim president Adan Muhammed Nur. The TFG’s governing institution; the Somalia Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) included a 275-member parliamentary body, known as the Transitional Federal Assembly (TFA), a transitional Prime Minister, and a 90-member cabinet. The parliamentary body and cabinet is comprised of members from the dominant clans in greater Somalia, although this has not guaranteed the viability of the TFG since it faces fierce resistance and its hold on power until now has been completely reliant on Ethiopian and US support.
It appears that the TFG does not have a presence of significant Hawiye clan members in the government. The Hawiye clan dominate the areas surrounding Mogadishu. Those in the TFG, sympathetic towards Ethiopia are not powerful enough to guarantee the long term viability of the TFG. Mohamad Hassan writes that “the Somali people are tired of the chaos and destruction of 16 years of a warlord regime. However it is the same warlords who have been protected and brought to power again in Mogadishu by the Ethiopian army. The warlords were hated by all Somalis for their corruption. Now they will be despised as traitors and stooges for the number one enemy of the Somali people, Ethiopia" This explains why the TFG were never able to hold on to captured territory, and faced severe resistance throughout southern Somalia.
The Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a coalition of clans from southern Somalia slowly consolidated power since their formation in the year 2000. They managed to assume control over much of southern Somalia, their greatest expansion period being the months preceding the Ethiopian invasion. Map A shows the territories controlled by the ICU until the end of 2006.
The Islamic Courts Union managed to stabilize the southern half of Somalia in much the same way that Puntland and Somaliland were pulled together after 1991; along clan alliances. The ICU was a coalition of the two largest clans in the south; the Hawiye and Rahanwein, including sub-clans of the Darod, as well as the smaller clans, the Dir and Digil. It is significant that it is from the Hawiye Clan controlled regions that the ICU drew its most strength and from the Darod (in Ethiopia and Puntland) clans that it faced the most opposition. Shortly after the invasion, African specialist Richard Cornwell told VOA, "I think what has happened is that the TFG-Ethiopian assault on Mogadishu is cementing the Hawiye back together. A large part of the Islamic courts movement was always based on the Hawiye. So, basically, it has melted back into the clan structure. What we could well be looking at, if things turn nasty, is a Hawiye-Darod civil war.” In other words, the simplistic moderate versus Islamic extremist paradigm presented by policy-makers and the media is deeply flawed. Map B shows clan formations in Somalia.
What is clearly visible is that the Darod clan and sub-clan structure extends deep into Ethiopia and this puts Puntland’s support for the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) into perspective. As map B illustrates, the Darod Clan and Ethiopia have a common foe in the form of the Islamic Courts Union, the bulk of which comprise the Hawiye, Rahanwein and Digil Clans. As mentioned before, sub-clans from the Darod in the most southern portion of Somalia were part of the Union of Islamic Courts, including Hassan Abdallah Hersi Al-Turki from the Ogaden clan and former leader of Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya.
Abdullahi Yusuf, who just stepped down as president of the TFG was formerly president of Puntland. Another glance at the map shows that the Darod Clan has a significant presence in the most southern part of Somalia and extends into Kenya. What is significant is that the clan structures are divided. For example, the Marehan sub-clan of the Darod are part of the Ethiopian/TFG alliance, yet a large group of the Darod sub-clans in the southernmost part of Somalia are active supporters and members of the Islamic Courts Union. What appears to be taking place in Somalia is internecine warfare, with ‘lords of war’ from the dominant clans and sub-clans using every available opportunity to achieve leverage over their neighbours, including accepting Ethiopian and US help and assistance, although there is little doubt that the more powerful Ethiopian and US forces see these opportunistic forces as convenient tools for their regional policies.
The War on Terror in Somalia
The picture presented by the mainstream media of the occupation went as follows, "Ethiopia forces had invaded Somalia to prevent an Islamic movement from ousting the weak, internationally recognized government from its lone stronghold in the west of the country. The U.S. and Ethiopia both accuse the Islamic group of harboring extremists, among them al-Qaida suspects."
The implications of one state invading another and deposing its government under the fantasy of the ‘war on terror’ shatters the myth of ‘international law’. Viewed historically, inter-state warfare is nothing new and hardly condemnable, since this is how power has always been expressed; in the conquest of territory, resources and people. This changed following the devastation of the two World Wars, where optimistic politicians declared their intention of preventing future war through the application of international law enshrined in the United Nations charter and enforceable through the combined military might of its respective peace-loving members. In other words, territorial conquest was a thing of the past, meaning that if a state today desired to conquer new territory or wage war against a neighbour for example, it would have to make a legal argument for such an action, and since such actions are irrevocably illegal, the most convenient way to frame the military action is as an act of ‘self-defence’ or as ‘humanitarian’ intervention.
This is what happened in Somalia in 2006 with Ethiopia being the victim and taking pre-emptive measures to defend itself. An interesting point made in the newspaper quote above is the threat to the ‘internationally recognized government from its lone stronghold in the west of the country’. By any democratic logic, a legitimate government stems from popular support, thus if this ‘government in waiting’, the TFG was legitimate and internationally recognized, why did it only have support in a lone outpost in the west on the country? The answer of course is that the government was not accepted by southern Somalia with the exception of some Darod sub-clans, and the TFG was supported by Ethiopian forces (backed by the US), and had been created outside of Somalia, and installed inside Somalia with foreign help. Somali president Abdullahi Yussuf who stepped down at the end of December is thus Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s East-African equivalent.
The ‘war on terror’ gives the US and its allies a convenient smokescreen to pursue unilateral objectives, whether of a strategic or economic nature. During the Cold War, intervention in foreign nations was usually framed as ‘containing communist aggression’ or the like. Since the end of the Cold War, the adversarial vacuum led to intervention being framed as ‘humanitarian’ or ‘self defence’. Consider the output of Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu during December 2006; "The Ethiopian government has taken self-defensive measures and started counter-attacking the aggressive extremist forces of the Islamic Courts and foreign terrorist groups."
Alain de Benoist writes “At the end of the 1990’s, Gorbachev’s advisor Arbatov declared to the Americans: ‘We are dealing you the worst blow: we are going to deprive you of your enemy’. These are significant words. The disappearance of the Soviet ‘Evil Empire’ threatened to eradicate all ideological legitimization of American hegemony over its allies. This means that, from then on, the Americans needed to find an alternative enemy, the threat, real or imaginary, of which would allow them a continued imposition of hegemony over their partners, who had been transformed into vassals. In conceptualizing the notion of ‘global terrorism’ two years after the 9/11 attacks, the Americans have found their new enemy”.
“Faced with terrorism, the old doctrine of ‘containment’ has become obsolete. The fight against terrorism is now a fight that is at once offensive by nature, but also preventive. It affirms the right to unlimited pursuit and, in authorizing the pursuer to cross all borders, permits him at the same time to affirm his hegemony in the world”, or the region, as is Ethiopia’s case. Without the ‘internationalization of international law’, there would be no grounds upon which to build the case for the ‘war on terror’.
The ‘war on terror’ is ultimately a global police operation bringing criminals to justice, with the modus operandi situated within a legal framework in order to provide legitimacy. And yet with the commencing of this strategy, international law has been shown to be a farce. The United Nations, the five permanent Security Council of which comprises the world’s five largest armaments producers and exporters, failed to protect Afghanistan from the U.S. invasion. It failed to stop the United States from invading Iraq and will no doubt fail to prevent the next sovereign victim of the ‘war on terror’. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
On the 13 January 2007, The Guardian newspaper noted, “On December 4, General John Abizaid, the commander of US forces from the Middle East through Afghanistan, arrived in Addis Ababa to meet the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. Officially, the trip was a courtesy call to an ally. Three weeks later, however, Ethiopian forces crossed into Somalia in a war on its Islamist rulers, and this week the US launched air strikes against suspected al-Qaida operatives believed to be hiding among the fleeing Islamist fighters. "The meeting was just the final handshake," said a former intelligence officer familiar with the region.”
In a notable order of events, CENTCOM commander Abizaid meets Zenawi on a courtesy call, three weeks later Somalia declares its own ‘war on terror’ and invades the sovereign state of Somalia controlled by the Islamic Courts Union, and whilst the deposed government is fleeing for safety, the United States launches deadly munitions at them, ostensible against people who are suspected to be Al Qaeda operatives believed to be among the fleeing and unapproved government. In other words, it is legal to shoot people who one suspects of being criminals, so much for the credibility of ‘western civilization’.
In the meantime, the United States Institute for Peace publishes a report explaining in terms even an American could not misunderstand, that the shadow organization has not made its presence felt in Somalia. The report notes that “yet to date, Somalia has not been the site of significant terrorist activity: It has not been the site of terrorist attacks; it has not hosted terrorist training bases; it has not proven to be a profitable recruiting ground for al qaeda; few foreign terrorists appear to have used the lawless country for safe haven; and no portion of the country has fallen under the direct political control of a radical Islamic group since 1996 ”.
The fact is that that there is no Al-Qaeda in Somalia (nor anywhere else for that matter). Nonetheless, the putatively legitimate government, the TGF, which has little support left in Hawiye controlled areas of Somalia and whose members will probably be hanged once Mogadishu is reclaimed by remnants of the ICU, now faces the reality of their actions; were they power hungry ‘lords of war’ using the Ethiopians and Americans to their advantage, or were they in fact the pawns in a larger game-plan being conducted by Zenawi and Abizaid? It is no secret that one man’s loss is another’s gain. By destroying the stabilizing force of the Islamic Courts, the Ethiopians plunged its Eastern neighbour back into conflict, military instability and humanitarian catastrophe. A weak neighbour on the eastern flank means Ethiopia can concentrate more on its other borders, especially the western and northern border with Sudan.
Bill Clinton's security advisor Anthony Lake indicated that the four countries that are decisive for the defence of American interests in Africa. These are Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. Lahra Smith of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote that “U.S. policy in the Horn necessarily focuses on Ethiopia, which is clearly the regional hegemon. It has a powerful and disciplined military, and after the suppression of dissent following the disputed 2005 parliamentary elections, a tightly-controlled and consolidated regime in the capital at Addis Ababa .”
Journalist Mohammed Hasan makes an interesting statement; he says that "the Ethiopian army is at present being reformed as a local mercenary force in the service of the Americans that can be used against any country in the region". It is the case that countries will oft comply with a more powerful states, in its self interest. In Ethopia’s case, being a partner of the US is clearly beneficial since it allows for more sway in east African affairs, its military actions being framed as ‘anti-terrorist’, alongside the advantage of military and economic aid. For the Americans, Ethiopia was a strategic partner during the Cold War until the communist government of 1974 looked towards the Soviet Union for partnership.
After the Cold War, Ethiopia once again became a strategic partner. Ethiopia even has a strategic interest for Israel. The ‘Periphery Doctrine’ which has guided Israeli foreign policy over the decades called for strong Israeli ties with non-Arab states on ‘the periphery’ as a counterweight to the hostile Arab neighbours forming the ‘core’. This strategic doctrine meant Israel looked towards Turkey, Ethiopia and until the late 1980’s, Iran*.
The US has been arming and training Ethiopian troops for some time now. On the Stars and Stripes website for example, one finds the testimony of one of the sixty American instructors who are training Ethiopian soldiers. Sgt. 1st Class Bill Flippo based at Camp Hurso near in the city of Dire Dawa, Ethiopia says; "I feel that what I'm doing now is really helping to fight the war on terror," Flippo said. "The knowledge we are giving to these soldiers is what they will use if they go and fight in Somalia, Eritrea or wherever." Barbara Slavin, wrote in USA TODAY that "The United States has quietly poured weapons and military advisers into Ethiopia, whose recent invasion of Somalia opened a new front in the Bush administration's war on terrorism. A Christian-led nation in sub-Saharan Africa, surrounded almost entirely by Muslim states, Ethiopia has received nearly $20 million in U.S. military aid since late 2002."
The arming of Ethiopian troops should not be viewed in isolation, however, but should be seen within the context of the larger US military presence throughout Africa, falling under AFRICOM, or Africa Command. AFRICOM was officially launched on October 1, 2007. A ‘unified combatant command’, it was created to ‘to promote U.S. national security objectives in Africa and its surrounding waters’. This means overseeing U.S. strategic interests in all African countries with the exception of Egypt, as well as monitoring sea lanes such as the Gulf of Guinea, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. This new military organization is part of the larger U.S. military strategy known as ‘full spectrum dominance’, facilitated by the ‘global terrorist threat’ because it justifies U.S. military presence anywhere deemed appropriate.
Whereas before, it was an all-pervasive communist threat, now it appears the communists, absorbed in Bakunin and Islam, have embraced anarcho-terrorism, threatening UN approved governments all over the continent. Greg Mills writes that “It is critical to understand that African leaders are primarily concerned about fighting local terrorists, whereas Westerners are often more concerned with those terrorists who threaten Western interests and happen to operate in Africa”. Statements such as these almost make perfectly clear that the “terrorist” threat is fabricated and use to justify military or policing operations to placate ‘threats to Western’ interests.
Besides the obvious interest in supporting pro- U.S. regimes in order to protect strategic interests such as commercial contracts and energy production, AFRICOM has placed a special emphasis on countering the terrorist threat’. In a report for the U.S. congress titled “Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests and the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa”, Lauren Ploch notes that “In recent years, analysts and U.S. policymakers have noted Africa’s growing strategic importance to U.S. interests. Among those interests are Africa’s role in the Global War on Terror and potential threats posed by uncontrolled spaces; the growing importance of Africa’s natural resources, particularly energy resources...” The Somali fiasco fits in perfectly with the problems that AFRICOM is attempting to address; it is commonly said that Somalia has not had effective governance since the fall of the Said Barre regime in 1991, thus rendering Somalia as an ‘uncontrolled space’.
Concerning strategic resources, the website www.raceandhistory.com published an article in 2001 saying “According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia’s pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush administration’s decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there.”
As for combating terrorism, the majority of Somalia’s population are Muslim, and naturally prefer Shariah Law. This has been a source of strength for the previous Somali government (ICU) which used Islam to overcome differences between groups, brought together a group of sub-clans and consolidated control over southern Somalia, as stated before. This plays into AFRICOM’s strategic vision since it allows for these groups, sworn enemies of the pro-Ethiopian TFG, to be labelled ‘Islamist’ and thus ripe for anti-terrorist actions, rhetoric and policies.
“The military defeat and dispersal of the Islamic Courts of south central Somalia in December 2006 and January 2007 has resulted in the destruction of a tenuous civil peace in the area, the exacerbation of Darod-Hawiye clan competition, and the emergence of a resistance movement with increasingly radical credentials. Unintended consequences have emerged on a massive scale, not least the further erosion of the TFG’s local legitimacy”. This statement by African specialist Richard Cornwell indicates the diabolical situation in the country. While the claim to have defeated the ICU militarily can be defeated with a glance at map C below, the superimposed TFG did cause massive civil dislocation as Ethiopian and TFG troops battled the ICU for control over territories, including as a result, the temporary desertion of Mogadishu.
he Islamic Courts Union, with its indifference to the UN mandated liberal democratic constitutional order, did manage to bring order to the bulk of southern and central Somalia. As for the Ethiopians, their fears of the ICU included concerns over irredentist claims on Hawiye populated territories within the country. At the rate at which the ICU was consolidating territory towards the end of 2006, there was clearly the possibility for ICU alliances with Darod sub-clans in eastern Ethiopia and Puntland, threatening the territorial integrity of both regions. The solution was of course, military invasion to destroy the ICU government. But as events have shown, the power base of the ICU was not symbolic, meaning the control of Mogadishu, but was rooted in all those regions, villages and populations of southern and central Somalia, making the TFG a long term impossibility without the support of foreign troops. Richard Cornwell notes that since the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) took power in Mogadishu in January 2006, the Hawiye clan became alarmed over moves to forcibly disarm their militias and give key security posts to members of President Abdullahi Yusuf's clan, the Darod. In an amusing footnote to the ICU capture of Mogadishu in 2006, the US supported militia who controlled the capital until then, known as the ‘Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) were referred to in liberal media networks as the ‘secular warlords’, their enemies being ‘Islamist’, the reality being that they are both Muslim. Map C demonstrates the extent to which the ICU (al-Shabaab, ICU, Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia) has retaken its former territories. The Transitional Federal Government is now so weak that in an attempt to maintain itself, is now inviting former ‘terrorists’ into power-sharing agreements.
Towards the end of 2008, the TFG voted to expand the parliament to include 200 members of the ‘moderate Islamist’ Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia and 75 representatives of the civil society. The irony in the story, is that the leader of the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, is none other than the former leader of the ICU when the Ethiopians attacked in 2006. With this development in mind, it is not surprising that the opportunistic Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the Ethiopian henchman, stepped down in December 2008, he knew the TFG’s days were numbered. One of the effects of the Ethiopian invasion and the prospect of a Darod controlled government was a cementing of ties between feuding elements within the Hawiye clan. When the TFG government was installed and the Ethiopian/TFG government forces made their way towards Mogadishu, two prominent Hawiye Clan leaders, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Hussein Aideed, ended their rivalries and united to fight the Ethiopian forces. Hussein Aideed is the son of Mohamed Farah Aideed, the infamous leader of the militia who fought the American soldiers in Mogadishu in 1993, upon which the movie BlackHawk Down was based. Hussein Aideed, who grew up in the US and joined the Marine Corps, came to Somalia in 1993 with the US military working as a translator. He ended up returning to Somalia, taking over a president from August 1996 to December 1997. He formed the Somalia Reconciliation and Restoration Council in 2001 to oppose the TFG, but settled differences with them. His militia controlled part of Mogadishu until the ICU defeated him in 2006, whereupon he joined the TFG, leaving in 2007 to Eritrea to join ranks with ICU leaders there. Aideed said that Somalis will unite against "the brutal occupation" by Ethiopia.
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, as we have noted was a former leader of the ICU and is now a candidate for presidency within the TFG. While the TFG has little effective control over Somalia, it has the benefit of being recognized by the UN, US and Somalia’s neighbours. Regardless of what happens in intra-TFG politics, the control of non-Puntland, non-Somaliland, Somalia is back in the hands of the Islamic Courts Union, the most notorious branch of which is the militia known as al-Shabaab, or the ....On Monday, 26 January, al-Shabaab recaptured Baidoa after Ethiopian forces withdrew. Mogadishu is still disputed territory, occupied by TFG government troops and contingents of African Union peacekeepers, although the Islamic Courts have made clear that their presence justifies a military response since they are protecting the TFG. Ahmed and Aideed have been joined by Sharif Hassan Aden, the former speaker of the interim government's parliament and leader of another major Somali tribe, the Digil-Mirifle. He lost his position in January 2006 after being too conciliatory toward the ousted Islamists, and was later fired by the government.
Somalia has a history of rejecting foreign intervention, as was the case with the UN and the US in the early nineties. Richard Cornwell notes that, “At almost every stage, it seems, external political intervention in Somalia has a deleterious effect on the fortunes of local society: the ill-considered and unconditional recognition of the Transitional Federal Government, comprised principally of warlords supported by Ethiopia; the US support for Ethiopian intervention due to alarm over the growth of an essentially benign Islamic courts movement..”
The future outlook will depend on developments within the TFG. If Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed ends up becoming president, then southern Somalia could well regain the stability and security which it briefly had before Ethiopia intervened. The US and others will no doubt describe the manoeuvres of the Islamic Courts groups as an illegitimate and harsh imposition of Shariah Law over a helpless population, or words to that effect. The BBC recently published an article which described the imposition of Shariah Law in Baidoa by the U.S. State Department designated terrorist organization, the al-Shabaab.
The issue of its democratic relevance is ignored, however. Writer Mohamad Hasan notes that "The overwhelming majority of Somalis saw the Islamic Courts as a stabilizing factor. This support of the Islamic Courts was not a support for international terrorists. Most jihadists do not speak Somali and few speak Arabic. They stand out too much with their different eating habits and clothing. When the population helped the Islamic Courts to defeat the warlords in a few weeks time and then to liberate practically the whole country in six months, it was because they were tired of the anarchy, the pillage of the warlords.” This indicates that the populations under the control of the Islamic Courts are arguably supportive of the Shariah system. It is a well known fact that no guerrilla army can survive without the support of the local population, a lesson learned from the Vietnam War.
As to the prospect of the African Union force being bolstered by more troops, perhaps even a future UN presence, Somalians have made it clear in the past that outside intervention is not welcome. Mohamad Hasan continues; “all Somalis are aware of the fact that in the sixteen years of anarchic rule by the warlords, there was never any initiative of the "International Community" to intervene in Somalia. However, just when the Islamic courts brought order and stability, they saw in November last year the UN Security council under the instigation of the USA vote the resolution 1752 that opened the door for the Ethiopian intervention that brought back the terror and anarchy they had just chased away. “This is an important point. AU peacekeepers have already been targeted and killed in the past. The weekend following the Ethiopian withdrawal saw mortar attacks on the AU compound in Mogadishu. Somalis have also made clear that they need aid, not foreign military presence. The UN relief supplies that were sent to Somalia in the early nineties saved many lives and helped relieve a humanitarian crisis, but went pear shaped when the US attempted to kidnap military figures in Mogadishu, causing the Somalis to turn on them.
As to the issue of piracy, Eritrea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement in November 2008 saying that the cause of the rampant piracy was the loss of in internal cohesion in greater Somalia since the early nineties. The statement noted, ”Piracy along the entire Somali coastland has increased substantially in the past weeks raising wide apprehension... the main cause of this problem is the vacuum that has been created for the last 17 years in Somalia...Sadly, an enduring solution is not conceivable until the reckless acts of the US and its surrogates aimed at balkanizing Somalia, dividing its people along ethnic and clan lines; and, fomenting animosity and lawlessness by bribing selfish warlords cease.” The piracy issue also threatens to further destabilize Somalia because a UN resolution passed in December 2008 authorizes “countries fighting piracy off the Somali coast to take action also on Somalia’s territory and in its airspace, subject to consent by the country’s government” (Irishtimes.com).
Somalia has the ability to reorganize itself and provide for its own internal security. This will ultimately depend on the perceived legitimacy of the Hawiye-Rahanwein-Digil Islamic Courts structure to outside powers, such as the UN, the US, Ethiopia and Kenya. Should this fail, we might well see in the future, a new intervention, and the fresh sacking of Somalia.
*conventional wisdom has it that Israel-Iran relations disintegrated with the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the reality, as Trita Parsi outlines in his book ‘Treacherous Alliance’, is that Israel and Iran still maintained cooperative ties, since they both faced similar threats, Iraq for example.
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