America has abandoned its influence in Iraq for the benefit of the militia linked to Iran’s allies

America has abandoned its influence in Iraq for the benefit of the militia linked to Iran’s allies

04/01/2013 (00:01 pm)

Translation term

Ten years after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, it seems that the geopolitical winner of this war is Iran. The U.S. military forces left a long time ago, and officials in Iraq say that the political influence of Washington in Baghdad no longer exists now. Iran and became an indispensable intermediary between the new Shiite elite in Baghdad, and increasingly powerful day after day.
Proof of this is evident in the emergence of the pro-Iranian militias in the streets and in public ceremonies and in the faces of some of those who now roam in the corridors of power, men like Abu Mahdi Mohandes; Iraqi with a long history of anti-American and a firm link with Iran.
During the occupation, U.S. officials accused him of providing Iranian-made bombs for use against U.S. forces. Today, he says Iraqi officials said an engineer speaking on behalf of Iran here in Iraq, and recently tabbed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in the local political task in the extremely sensitive.
The role of Iran strengthens its strategic position, in a time of increasing anti-Tehran world facing severe international sanctions over its controversial nuclear, and facing fears the loss of Syria at the hands of rebels backed by regional rivals of the year.
Western diplomats express and Iraqi officials have expressed concern that the use of the Islamic Republic of agents in Iraq to strike at its enemies, as it did with the Lebanese Hezbollah. The American officials say that these agents are still vital players in Iraq has worked to defuse tensions between Maliki and his enemies.
However, during the visit of Foreign Minister John Kerry Baghdad last Sunday he was unable to convince the Iranian Maliki stop flights passing through Iraqi airspace to Syria, which the United States accuses of shipping arms to the Syrian regime. For his part, Maliki denied the existence of evidence that Tehran send anything other than humanitarian aid. Kerry’s visit was the first by a U.S. government official in more than a year.
On the whole, he says Iraqi officials and analysts, Washington pursues a policy of disengagement almost complete, with political decisions fell to the level of the embassy in Baghdad. Some tribal leaders complain that the Americans have not contacted them since the departure of American troops late 2011.
To the deteriorating political atmosphere in Iraq; Maliki ordered the arrest of former finance minister, and disagreements between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government is still unresolved. He says Saleh al-Mutlaq, Deputy Prime Minister comment on the disappearance of the role of the Americans as intermediaries in most of the Iraqi differences “Americans have no part, and no one listens to them.’ve Lost their power in Iraq.”
But Iran and Sunni neighbors is that fills the void to a large extent, each of which seeks to establish what more can influence in the country is a barrier between Shiite Iran and the Middle East mostly Sunni.
In this context, says Karim Sadjadpour, an expert in Iranian affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “at the present time, Iran has what looks like the right of veto in Iraq, that al-Maliki is keen not to take decisions that will cause aversion Iran”.
He described Shiite politician, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity, the objectives of Iran, saying “there is instability in Iraq orderly and government Menkadh or sympathetic with the regional interests of Iran, especially in relation to Syria.” Maliki began tends to Shiite Islamist parties and personalities linked to Iran in order to stay in power after the 2010 elections; Since then he resisted the challenges with the support of the supreme leader in Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, who feared the expansion of Sunni power in the case of the collapse of Syria or Iraq. The convinced Maliki Iranians that only one capable of unifying the country.
Iran strongly supports the paramilitary groups and political force in Iraq and encourages them to support al-Maliki. And some of these groups was founded and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the years of the eighties of the fighter for Saddam. And describes the senior Shia in Iraq, the emergence of these groups in favor of Iran as a healthy development after the U.S. military withdrawal. He says Sheikh Hamoudi, a member of the Iraqi parliament, who lived in Iran for a long time before the fall of Saddam “These were imitators anonymous Khamenei and before Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but today they have become known.”
The engineer said to secretly headed a militia, and has appeared for the first time against Saddam, the end of the seventies, and in order to avoid arrest has moved to Kuwait, after a court accused him there in absentia to participate in the bombing of the U.S. and French embassies in 1983.
Architect and fled to Iran, where he joined an organization which now runs its political office in Baghdad. After the U.S. invasion returned to Iraq and was elected to Parliament on behalf of Jamal Jaafar. He fled from Iraq again when Americans knew his true identity, and in 2009 and described by the U.S. Treasury Department as a threat to the security of Iraq. But returned to Iraq after the American withdrawal.
Iraqi officials say that the engineer during that period developed a close relationship with Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Qods responsible for Iran’s relations with Iraq. In view of the new appearance, has sent al-Maliki last month with three senior members of the Dawa Party to the Kurdistan region, in an attempt to remove the differences relating to the rights in the oil-rich Kirkuk and other areas. The senior Iraqi official says declined to be named “Engineer is Iran’s envoy to Iraq. When attending a meeting, the attendees know that he is speaking on behalf of Jerusalem and the forces Soleimani. He was talking about them more than they talk of the Iranian embassy for them.”

: Los Angeles Times

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