US, Iran and the Iraqi election
game By Ehsan Ahrari
Iran and
the United States are involved in an intense competition
to make Iraq an integral part of their respective,
clashing, and invariably contradictory spheres of
influence. Their chief difference in modus operandi is
that the US has wrapped its designs in the multicolored
covering of democracy and liberty to make it palatable
to the Iraqis. Iran, on the contrary, is very quiet
about using its Shi'ite ties to make Iraq a vassal. In
the election campaign ahead of January elections, these
two actors will intensify their endeavors to ensure that
either a pro-US or a pro-Iran government emerges in
Iraq. Strangely enough, the chief wild card in this
competition is the Iraqi populace, whose preferences are
being blatantly ignored by both Washington and Tehran,
each determined to have its particular way.
In
the power game that is being played in the Middle East,
the most powerful ones don't necessarily emerge as the
winners. The limitation of military power becomes
obvious when one examines the fact that the United
States is so utterly bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire
after quickly dismantling the Saddam Hussein regime. Now
it can bomb the cities into rubble, but the defiance of
the insurgents and their sympathizers appears well nigh
invincible. The Iraqi insurgents know that as long as
they can absorb human losses the US behemoth will remain
on shaky ground, for its capacity to absorb human losses
is indeed quite finite. That is what is driving the
insurgents and terrorists in their battles with the
United States in Samarra and Fallujah.
The
administration of US President George W Bush knows full
well the Achilles'-heel aspect of its own involvement in
Iraq. That is why it is also busy ensuring that its
long-term presence or influence is not jeopardized. The
ultimate purpose of the US occupation is to ensure that
Iraq remains a vassal state. Washington knows how
significant it is to keep that country down for the sole
purpose of sustaining its own hegemony in the Middle
East. The very Ba'athist heritage of Iraq (and that of
Syria) is deeply anti-imperial and anti-Western in
nature. It despised the British presence in the region,
and transferred its hatred and suspicion from Britain to
the United States, when the latter became the hegemonic
power in 1970, the official ending of the dominant
British presence from the Persian Gulf.
The
current obstacle from the vantage point of the United
States is the reported paralysis that has emerged in
Washington as a result of strong disagreements between
the Department of State (DOS) - which is now in charge
of the occupation-related policies of Iraq - and the
Department of Defense (DOD) - which used to be in charge
for that very purpose. The Bush administration has
earmarked US$40 million to help Iraqi political parties
mobilize. The unstated purpose of that fund is "to
counter Iran's support for its allies in the emerging
race to influence" the outcome of elections come
January.
The same paralysis is also afflicting
America's policy regarding Iran. What is making the Bush
administration quite nervous is the fact that Iran is
also dumping its own substantial resources onto the
highly organized Shi'ite religious parties. This very
characteristic of the Shi'ite parties provides them with
an abundant edge over the struggling moderate and
non-sectarian parties in Iraq. Iran remains fully
focused on such religious parties as the Supreme Council
for Islamic Revolution (SCIRI), the Islamic Dawa party,
and Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
The United
States, on its part, is also pursuing a similar, but
two-tiered, strategy. The first tier of this strategy is
to supply funds to secular parties, even though in
theory US funds are available to all Iraqi parties. The
second tier of the US strategy is to create a
multilateral forum for Iraq in mid-November. The purpose
of that forum is to bring Iraq's neighbors together,
along with the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC), the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the
Arab League, the Group of Eight industrialized
countries, and the European Union.
This forum
will create a multilateral plan for the evolution of a
secular democratic Iraq, with the hope that the OIC, the
GCC and the Arab League would endorse such a move. More
substantially, the purpose of including Iran in this
forum is to teach it "how to be a responsible neighbor".
Of course, stripped of its diplomatic twaddle, the
purpose of the United States is to persuade Iran to
allow the emergence of a secular democratic Iraq, an
objective that is directly opposed to Iran's purpose of
helping Iraq to emerge as an Islamic democracy. The
inclusion of Western states in this move is not too
subtle, an attempt by the US to legitimize its own
continued occupation of Iraq.
Apparently, the
preceding US plan is put together by the DOS. However,
it is as much divorced from regional realities as any
other plan that the DOD has promoted thus far. No one is
paying any heed to the following very basic questions.
Why should Iran help the US in making Iraq in its (US)
image, when such an objective so profoundly contradicts
Iran's own goal of seeing the emergence of an Islamic
Iraq? Why is it that Washington's objectives toward Iraq
become so superior that all the neighboring states are
to undermine their own national interests and behave
"responsibly"? Why should, by helping Iraq become a
secular democratic country, Iran improve the prospects
of the establishment of a permanent US hegemony, right
next door to itself? No one who is knowledgeable about
the profound historic religious and cultural ties
between Iraq and Iran would pursue such an objective and
expect the latter to cooperate.
Let us also
candidly admit that Iran, too, wishes to see a vassal
Iraq in the future. But Iraq is much too significant a
state - both from the vantage points of Islam and
pan-Arab history - to become a vassal. Baghdad was the
seat of the Abbasid caliphate from the 9th to the 13th
century. During this era, it became the center of
Islamic learning and international trade. In the
contemporary era, Iraq became the seat of the Ba'ath
Party, which was the chief proponent of pan-Arabism.
Only later on was that party reduced to a mouth organ of
Saddam Hussein's megalomaniac rule. Even while it was
under United Nations sanctions and under constant US
military surveillance, the significance of Iraq as an
Arab state was never reduced.
Either by being
unmindful of Iraq's previous significance or by merely
ignoring it, the United States is expecting to impose
its own preferences over the Iraqis, first through
military conquest, and then by using a multilateral
forum to legitimize its long-term occupation, even in
the form of permanent military bases. Iran, on the
contrary, is hoping to impose its own priorities on Iraq
by using historical religious and cultural linkages.
The Iraqis, despite their ethnic and sectarian
differences, have thus far manifested that Iraq is
likely to be a vassal of neither the United States nor
Iran. Any entity inside Iraq - either the Interim Iraqi
Government or the Shi'ite parties - that attempts to
promote such a reality is likely to be swept aside.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria,
Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.
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