Military action 'would destabilise Iraq'

London, July 5 : Iraq will be plunged into a new war if Israel or the US launches an attack on Iran, Iraqi leaders have warned.

Iranian retaliation would take place in Iraq, The Independent quoted Dr. Mahmoud Othman, the influential Iraqi MP, as saying.

he Iraqi government's main allies are the US and Iran, whose governments openly detest each other. The Iraqi government may be militarily dependent on the 140,000 US troops in the country, but its Shia and Kurdish leaders have long been allied to Iran.

Iraqi leaders have to continually perform a balancing act in which they seek to avoid alienating either country.

The balancing act has become more difficult for Iraq since George Bush successfully requested 400 million dollars from Congress last year to fund covert operations aimed at destabilising the Iranian leadership.

Some of these operations are likely to be launched from Iraqi territory with the help of Iranian militants opposed to Tehran.

An embarrassing aspect of the American pinprick war against Iran is that many of its instruments were previously on the payroll of Saddam Hussein.

The one community in Iran most likely to oppose the Tehran government is the Iranian Kurds.

ANI