TEHRAN (Financial Times) - Iran is ready to help the U.S. stabilize Iraq if Washington presents a timetable for a withdrawal of its troops, Tehran’s top security official said on Sunday.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, rejected Washington’s accusations that Tehran is providing weapons to Iraqi militias, insisting the trouble with Iraq was that the U.S. administration was pursuing a “dead-end strategy”.
Larijani maintained it was time world powers realized Iran’s nuclear progress could not be reversed and that they should enter into negotiations with Tehran without preconditions.
Pledging to continue cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, he made clear, however, that Iran would not suspend its uranium enrichment program. But he said he was open to “ideas being put on the table” in forthcoming talks with Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, to resolve the nuclear stand-off.
Larijani suggested that both the U.S. Democratic party and the British were getting it right in Iraq. The Democrats’ push for a timetable for withdrawal “seems to be logical”, he said, and the British were “more intelligent than the Americans”, having made the “necessary adjustments” and retreated to Basra airport.
“If they (the Americans) have a clear definition of a timetable we’ll help them materialize it,” Larijani said. “If the U.S. is persisting with its mistakes, it shouldn’t ask for help from us.”
The U.S. has accused Iran of undermining security in Iraq by supplying advanced roadside bombs and Iranian-made rockets to Shia militias. The U.S. Senate last week called for the Revolutionary Guards to be designated as a “foreign terrorist organization”.
Three rounds of talks between U.S. and Iranian officials have been held in Baghdad but do not appear to have produced tangible results.
Larijani, however, dismissed U.S. accusations as “lies”. He said Iran had asked for names of Revolutionary Guard personnel that the U.S. claimed were involved in helping Iraqi groups but that it had received no response.
He said Iran was the only country in the region to have supported the Iraqi government and the democratic process, while the U.S. allies – by which he meant Arab governments – provided no assistance and worked against Washington.
He also said Tehran had information that U.S. officials were holding talks with Izzat al-Douri, the former Baathist senior official who is said to be leading parts of the Sunni insurgency. “This is a disaster for the Iraqi people,” he said.
Larijani also said Washington’s failures in Iraq should be a warning against embarking on a new “adventure”.
Refusing to specify what Tehran’s retaliation might be, he warned that the U.S. should attack Iran if it wished “to receive Israel on a wheelchair” and predicted that Washington would be “sticking its hand into a ­beehive”.
Addressing the nuclear program, Larijani said it had reached an advanced stage, providing Iran with a “full command of the technology” that no one could take away. “This status cannot be ignored. I’m surprised to hear (uranium enrichment) suspension is still being talked about.”
Iran agreed with the IAEA a “work plan” in late August, in which it pledged to clear up the remaining ambiguities about its nuclear intentions. The deal encouraged Russia and China to block an immediate new round of sanctions.
Larijani said the agreement with the IAEA was not a delaying tactic. Whether all the issues would be cleared by next month, however, depended on the speed with which the nuclear watchdog operated, he said. “The more acceleration there is by the agency, the faster it will be completed.