The battle to rid Tikrit of the Islamic State has revealed the depth of the Iranian military's role in Iraq, as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard leaders’ authority over what has been dubbed the “popular mobilization” units — militias parallel to the Iraqi army.
Iran has sent forces, consultants and arms to Iraq and its security leaders claim that they are the ones who saved the Iraqi regime and Baghdad. A New York Times report said Iran deployed rockets and missiles in Iraq, while several Iraqi leaders spoke about a military deal struck with Iran worth $10 billion.
This is not merely a temporary Iranian support for Iraq during its ordeal. It’s more a plan by the Iranians to dominate and seize control of their oil-rich Iraqi neighbor, which has a significant geo-strategic location.
What changed since September is that Iran no longer counts on the office of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki — who was its close ally — now that he’s been constitutionally toppled by the majority of Iraqi forces. Iran has therefore decided to be present in all Iraqi political, military, partisan and religious posts.
The Iranian involvement in Iraq and its domination over Baghdad’s decision-making process reflects Iran’s desire to dominate Syria and Iraq, and this automatically means a domination over the Arab Levant, including the Gulf.
Iran was worried when Iraqis forced Al-Maliki to exit at a time when he was holding on to his post and intending to renew his premiership term for four more years. In this way he would have ended up governing Iraq for 12 consecutive years by resorting to absolute power that resembles the former regime of Saddam Hussein. The United States supported the plan to eliminate Al-Maliki by cooperating with Iraq’s political parties including Al-Maliki’s Dawa party which turned against him.
His comrade Haidar Al-Abadi was chosen to take over the premiership. It seems that eliminating Al-Maliki emboldened the Iranian regime to directly interfere in Iraq and obstruct the political reconciliation which Abadi pledged to achieve with Sunni Arabs and Kurds. The Iranians have also aborted the project to establish a National Guard force, and instead have established a combination of extremist Shiite militias which they call “the popular mobilization” units and which currently handle the fighting in Sunni areas.
The process of Iran’s seizure of Iraq resembles that of the Syrian model in Lebanon — it started under the banner of the Arab Deterrent Force and later, during the 1970s, Syrian troops resorted to confronting Palestinian militias.
Even after the defeat of forces hostile to the Lebanese authority, the Syrian troops stayed in Lebanon within the context of a comprehensive domination formula which got rid of historical political figures either by assassinating or marginalizing them.
The Syrians also controlled all aspects of the economy, established the party of Hezbollah as their military arm and fully controlled Lebanon for a quarter of a century.
Iranian intelligence and Revolutionary Guard forces are currently heavily present inside Iraq and most of them are deployed under the slogan of confronting IS. However the size of Iranian interference — in my view — confirms that Iran is not present in Iraq for a temporary military cooperation plan.
What enhances these fears is comments from Iraqi leaders that it bought weapons worth $10 billion. Since the amount of money is huge and since Iran does not have weapons worth this amount, it proves correct several politicians’ statements that in the past few years Al-Maliki government funded Iranian activities in the region under different excuses which were either described as financial compensation or as the cost of military purchases. Truth be told, the amount of money paid by the Iraqis to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard — regardless of how hefty they are — are not the case here.
What’s more important is Iran’s intentions of this presence in Iraq and of managing Iraqi forces and controlling Iraqi political decisions. So is an Iranian seizure of Iraq imminent?
