Iraq and Tehran’s Illusions

In the past two decades, that is to say since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad, a new discourse has developed in which post-Saddam Iraq is depicted as part of an empire being built by the Khomeinist regime in Tehran.

[T]he Khomeinist empire-building scheme in Iraq has failed. To be sure, Iraq is now slated as Iran’s principal trading partner. But this is largely due to exports of Iranian gas and electricity to Iraq, exports for which Iraq has failed to pay so far. Iraqi debts to Iran are estimated at between $17 and $22 billion.

[Iraq’s] Shiite community, assuming that such a label is accurate, is also divided with those remaining loyal to Tehran providing a dwindling minority.

Iraq had signed oil exploration and production deals with more than 60 countries while the Islamic Republic is excluded. Last week, Baghdad signed a deal with Ankara for a gas pipeline to the Turkish port of Yumurtalik to supply Europe.

Iraq may still be uncertain about what kind of future it wants. But one thing is certain: it doesn’t want to be a fiefdom for the mullahs of Tehran.

In the past two decades, that is to say since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad, a new discourse has developed in which post-Saddam Iraq is depicted as part of an empire being built by the Khomeinist regime in Tehran. Tehran’s surrogates in Beirut refer to this supposed empire as the “Resistance Front,” while Iran’s opponents label it a “Shiite Crescent” that also includes parts of Syria still under Bashar al-Assad’s control.

However, apart from Lebanon, which remains under relatively firm Iranian control, the idea that the Assad potion of Syria and Iraq as a whole are Iranian fiefdoms may be far-fetched.

Since Lebanon is a minor player in the larger regional scene and Syria remains an “ungoverned territory” divided into five segments, it is only Iraq that is often featured as the big prize in the supposed Khomeinist empire.

From the Iranian perspective, there are two antagonistic visions of Iraq. In the pan-Iranist perspective, Mesopotamia is one of the two “centers” of Iranian civilization. The word Iraq, meaning lowland, is itself of, Persian origin. Baghdad (“God-given”) is also a Persian word, while Babylon and Ctesiphon, near present-day Baghdad, were capital of successive Persian empires for over 1,000 years. Almost all the great battles between the Persian and Roman Empires took place in what is now Iraq.

In that discourse, the term Mesopotamia is replaced with the Persian phrase “mianroudan” (“between the two rivers”), while Shatt al-Arab, the border estuary, is renamed “Arvind Rood”.

The traditional Shiite narrative, and the more recent Khomeinist version of it, challenge that vision of Iraq. In that version, Iraq is the “holy land”, although in Islam the adjective “holy” is exclusive to God, not to be used for any land, city, object or human being.

The 16th century Persian poet Mohtasham Kashani claims that “true believers” shall give the last drop of their blood to protect Najaf and Karbala, two of the Iraqi cities where several Shiite imams are buried.

The Safavid Dynasty, which converted Iranians to Shiism in the 16th century, based part of its legitimacy on its ability to prevent the “holy shrines” from falling into the hands of the Sunni Ottomans.

However, after almost 150 years of intermittent warfare, the Safavids conceded the loss of their “holy land” to the Ottomans in 1639 with the Qasr-e-Shirin Treaty which, nevertheless, granted Iran a “right of oversight” on the “holy shrines,” and Iranian pilgrims unhindered access to Karbala and Najaf.

Recovering the “holy shrines” remained a propaganda theme for the Safavids right to the ignominious end of their dynasty. The short-lived Zand dynasty managed to briefly regain control of the “holy cities.” However, two treaties, in 1823 and 1847, fixed the new frontiers of Iran and the Ottoman Empire, with the “holy land” falling under exclusive control of the Sultan in Constantinople. After the First World War, with the British firmly in control and Iran passing through a chaotic phase of its history, dreams of regaining the “holy land” evaporated.

In 1921, the Shiite clergy opposed the transformation of Iraq into an independent state while the Iranian monarchy welcomed the emergence of a new kingdom in the neighborhood. In the early 1950s, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi briefly toyed with the idea of a dynastic alliance through the marriage of then his only daughter Princess Shahnaz to the young King Faisal II of Iraq.

The scheme fell through when the two protagonists met on the French Riviera only to find out that they were at best indifferent to one another.

Fast forward to 2003, when the ruling mullahs in Tehran, branding themselves as victors in the eight-year war against Saddam Hussein, cooperated with the US-led invasion of Iraq in the hope of securing a toehold in the country.

Tens of thousands of fighters, recruited among the estimated two million Iraqi refugees in Iran, both Arab and Kurdish, were transferred to “liberated” Iraq to build the bridgehead that the Khomeinist mullahs wanted. The idea was to prevent the emergence of a new independent Iraqi state and the transfer of decision-making to non-state organs and militias. The hope was that the scenario played out in Lebanon, turning the state into a hollow shell, would succeed in Iraq.

Khomeinist pundits played a new tune: Iraq was an artificial state created by the British and later reshaped by the Americans. At the same time, Tehran took over the task of revamping the holy shrines and spending astronomical sums buying loyalty among the new Iraqi ruling elite and their militias.

However, at this writing the Khomeinist empire-building scheme in Iraq has failed. To be sure, Iraq is now slated as Iran’s principal trading partner. But this is largely due to exports of Iranian gas and electricity to Iraq, exports for which Iraq has failed to pay so far. Iraqi debts to Iran are estimated at between $17 and $22 billion.

Worse still, Iraqi trades take advantage of the fall in the value if Iran’s currency, the rial, to import goods, especially food and consumer goods, from Iran at low prices, making fat profits. Iraq also draws significant income from an estimated 2.5 million Iranian pilgrims to the “holy land”.

Tehran’s Iraq strategy has divided Iraqis of all backgrounds. Among the Kurds, the remnants of the Talabani faction in Sulaymaniyah remain more or less loyal to Tehran, while the Barzani faction in Erbil have built their own network of regional and international alliances and play host to at least three anti-Iran armed groups. Even the Kurdish branch of Hezbollah has been playing a double game in recent times.

The Shiite community, assuming that such a label is accurate, is also divided with those remaining loyal to Tehran providing a dwindling minority.

Iraq had signed oil exploration and production deals with more than 60 countries while the Islamic Republic is excluded. Last week, Baghdad signed a deal with Ankara for a gas pipeline to the Turkish port of Yumurtalik to supply Europe. A similar deal was signed by Iran and Turkey in 1978 but never activated because of the Khomeinist revolution.

Iraq may still be uncertain about what kind of future it wants. But one thing is certain: it doesn’t want to be a fiefdom for the mullahs of Tehran.