Seven years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, everything points to the growing influence of Iran in Iraqi politics, writes Mustafa El-Labbad* The seventh anniversary of the occupation of Iraq was marked by a fierce set of parliamentary elections reflecting the domestic balance of power that has come into being in the country since the 2003 US-led invasion. This not only overthrew the old regime, but it also flung open the door to ugly and violent sectarian upheavals. Whereas latent sectarian tensions were once kept well beneath the surface and the political situation in Iraq could be described using conventional classifications, today any political analysis must almost invariably start with sectarian allegiances. Today, Iraq's political parties and personalities are not from the left, the right or the centre. Rather, they are above all Sunni or Shia. From here, one has to proceed to the regional dimension, which must also be regarded in sectarian terms. On one side, there is Iran, which backs the Iraqi Shia groups, and on the other there is Saudi Arabia, which champions the Sunni forces. Somewhere in between are Syria and Turkey. Ever present in the background are the American occupation forces, hopelessly mired in the morass they have created. Seven years after former US president George W. Bush declared victory in Iraq, the Obama administration is struggling to find the elusive formula that will enable US forces to remain in Iraq long enough to bring about a consensual system of government and some sort of stability, all in order to ensure that Iraq does not tumble into the hands of Iran. In the March 2010 elections, Iraqi political parties contested 325 parliamentary seats representing the country's 18 provinces. To the surprise of many observers, the list headed by the secularist former prime minister Ayad Alawi, who has the support of the majority of Sunnis and a significant segment of the Shia population opposed to Iranian encroachment in the country, emerged victorious with 91 seats. The runner up, with 89 seats, was the Rule of Law list headed by the outgoing Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who enjoyed widespread support among a significant section of the Shia population. Coming in third, with 70 seats, was a coalition made up of several Shia parties with a strong base in southern Iraq. In fourth place were the Kurdish parties, which secured 43 seats. The remaining 32 seats were distributed between the Iraqi Consensus Front, which has a majority Sunni constituency, and other parties or individuals representing religious or other minorities. Alawi's Iraqi List needs 72 more seats in order to have an overall parliamentary majority. Alawi could form a coalition government, but he would need a Shia partner in order to do so and given today's reality in Iraq this is a tall order. The Shia, on the other hand, could theoretically form a government without Alawi, with an alliance between the Rule of Law list, the Shia Coalition list and the Kurds. However, the effects of locking Alawi out of government could be disastrous, as this could aggravate the Sunnis' belief that they have been systematically marginalised since the 2003 invasion and possibly trigger renewed acts of terrorism. Negotiations between the parties also have a strong regional and international dimension. While it appears that Iraq's Arab neighbours and Washington have placed their bets on one horse emerging victorious from the elections, Iran had several horses in the running all along. Iran has strong historical relations with the Kurds in northern Iraq, close links with Nouri al-Maliki and key figures in his electoral list. Meanwhile Iran is the regional and political umbrella shading the Coalition list representing the Islamic Revolution Council headed by Amar al-Hakim and the Muqtada al-Sadr Movement. Because of this extensive Iranian influence, Alawi's chances of forming a coalition are slim because he does not have Iran's blessing. The negotiations currently in progress between Alawi and the parties close to Iran are almost certain to produce nothing meaningful. Nevertheless, they are likely to drag on for several months because even if the four leading parties agree to form a government in principle they will nevertheless remain immersed in haggling over key ministries. Sunni-Shia tensions will play out over the negotiating table, while the Kurds will strive to capitalise on the Sunni-Shia divide. Whereas the Kurdish vote was once represented by two factions, it is now split across three. In addition to the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by Masoud Barzani and the Kurdistan National Union led by Jalal Talibani, there is also the Goran Movement, "goran" being the Kurdish for "change." Because three of Iraq's 18 provinces, Dahuk, Erbil and Sulimaniyya, are predominantly Kurdish, and because of the larger Sunni turnout in the March elections, the Kurds received fewer seats than in previous elections, which were boycotted by Sunni Arabs. Although Saudi Arabia, Turkey and even Iran's ally Syria hope that the presence of Alawi's Iraqi List in the next government will serve as a counterweight to Iran's influence in the country, the fact is that Iraq is now more of a regional country than it was before the 2003 US-led invasion, when it was solely part of the Arab world. Until 2003, Iraq was well within the notional framework of the Arab regional order. Although debilitated by the protracted international boycott that had lasted since its occupation of Kuwait, it nevertheless stood as a barrier to the westward expansion of Iranian national ambitions. In addition, after having signed a series of understandings with Turkey over the cross-border pursuit of Kurdish rebels and in the light of Ankara's westward foreign policy orientation, Iraq served as a fulcrum between Turkey, which had no desire to play a regional role, and Iran, which was unable at the time to assert itself directly in Iraq. As weakened as Baghdad was in 2003, and despite its weak grip on Kurdistan in the north and on the south of Iraq, just by surviving the regime kept the lid on volatile conditions that could have set off conflagrations having regional repercussions. It was with the fall of the Saddam regime that Iran pounced on the opportunity to push into Iraq. Its motives for doing so were manifold. It was determined to prevent Iraq from ever launching another war against it, as the Saddam regime had done in 1980. It was equally resolved not to let Iraq become a staging post for an offensive against Iran, since as a result of the American occupation Iran was now entirely surrounded by US forces. Tehran was also inspired by a historical drive to expand its influence and leverage itself into a major regional power. The American quagmire in Iraq handed it a golden opportunity to do so, while at the same time capitalising on the situation in a manner that would ultimately force the US to negotiate over its regional role and other issues. Iran appears to have accomplished these aims. However, it has yet to achieve an additional aim, one that concerns Iran's neighbours, which is to turn Iraq into a staging post for upsetting the regional balance in the Arabian Peninsula. The reason why Tehran has not been able to accomplish this is because the new US administration fully appreciates the dangers should it succeed. Tehran has availed itself of every political, economic, covert and sectarian avenue to assert itself in Iraq, and it has succeeded in expanding its influence there to a level that is unprecedented since the cornerstone of the modern Iraqi state was laid with the creation of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1921. In other words, following the occupation of Iraq, Tehran has succeeded in turning potential threats against it into opportunities. Its ability to do so reflects a deep and subtle understanding of the Iraqi political balance and demographic make-up. How Iran has turned these factors to its advantage is best summed up by the fact that before the US-led invasion Iraqi socio-political dynamics revolved around the Arab-Kurdish dichotomy, with the Arabs the majority and the Kurds the minority. Since then, Iran has succeeded in transforming Iraqi politics into a three-sided equation, consisting of Sunnis, Shias and Kurds. This new arrangement, approved both by Iran and the US and even the majority of Iraqis themselves, has given Iran a clear upper hand, in view of its strong religious links with Iraqi Shias and its historical and linguistic links with Iraqi Kurds. So adamant has Iran been about perpetuating this tripartite socio-political organisation, one that readily lends itself to Iranian interests in Iraq, that it insisted upon its being enshrined in the country's new constitution as the basis for power-sharing in Iraq in the post-2003 era. Iran has also proved itself to be a master of Machiavellian tactics. While it had shared the American desire to topple the Saddam regime, it was equally if not more determined to complicate the American intervention in Iraq. Indeed, Iran was the US's most fervent, if silent, partner up until the US occupation of Iraq. Without firing a shot, it has managed to reverse the partial victory that Iraq achieved in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war into a total victory for Iran. After having insinuated itself into the Iraqi political arena, Tehran also held four rounds of talks with the US in Baghdad, signalling that it and the US were now the strongest players in the country. In asserting its power in Iraq, it is likely that Tehran applied the following kind of cause-and-effect reasoning: eliminating and marginalising the Sunnis would provoke them into committing acts of violence; this violence would cause the collapse of the political process; this in turn would exacerbate the Iraqi quagmire for the US and, consequently, US forces, heavily embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, would not be able to launch a military offensive against Iran. Logic of this sort, perhaps with some minor adjustments, has since proved an almost fool-proof formula in chalking up the many gains that Tehran has scored in Iraq. The aspiration to establish Iran as a regional power has obsessed Iranian rulers since the founding of the modern Iranian state. Iraq has always figured heavily in these ambitions, which is unsurprising in view of a long history in which the territory that now makes up the modern state of Iraq had functioned as the bellwether of Iran's regional reach. The former Iranian Safavid and Qajar dynasties concluded four pacts with the former Ottoman Empire over Iraq, for example, and Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, cities that now define the contemporary political triangle of Iraq, flew the Ottoman flag until the foundation of the independent Iraqi state in 1921. These agreements with the Ottomans gave Iran the right to supervise the Shia holy places in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, this right having been established in Iranian lore in the early 16th century by the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas, who travelled by foot from his capital Isfahan to the sacred thresholds of the holy city of Najaf in order to "sweep the grave of the Leader of the Faithful Ali Bin Abi Taleb." Abbas gave himself the title of "the dog at the threshold of Ali," thereby underlining the Iranian claim on southern Iraq and the country's aspiration for regional power in which influence in Iraq forms an essential ingredient. A further succinct testimony to the centrality of Iraq in the Iranian regional outlook is the fact that over the course of three centuries Iran signed 14 treaties with the Ottomans concerning the borders of Iraq. Foremost among these were the Treaty of Amasya (1554), the Treaty of the Emir (1562), the Treaty of Sraw (1618), the Treaty of Zuhab (1639), The Treaty of Shirvan (1736) and the Treaty of Ardrom (1823). The current Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran is no less prey to the Iraqi obsession than was its predecessors, and it hardly needs Washington's approval to expand its influence in Iraq. On the contrary, Iran moved into the country without Washington's permission and in spite of the presence of American troops. However, Tehran cannot expect to be recognised as a regional power without the green light from Washington. While it holds an excellent hand, enabling it to sabotage American projects at every turn, as is proven daily throughout the Fertile Crescent, decision-makers in Tehran, their eyes fixed on the realisation of an internationally acknowledged regional role, know the limits of their power. While Iran can make things harder for the US, this may not make it easier for Iran to achieve its own regional ambitions. Regional influence ultimately counts for nothing if it cannot be translated into concrete and durable realities, and these can only be secured in the framework of an understanding with Washington. While Washington cannot claim "victory" in Iraq after seven years of occupation due to a variety of factors, not least among them being Iranian- caused obstructions, Tehran cannot compel Washington to withdraw from Iraq unconditionally either or to leave the country to Iranian domination. Nevertheless, there may still be some surprises in store. Perhaps al-Maliki will withdraw from the running for the premiership. Yet, even if he does so Alawi will still need a Shia partner to form a government, while the Shia camp could form a government without Alawi and it would be difficult to imagine a Shia party entering into a coalition with Alawi to the exclusion of the other Shia parties. This being so, it can be expected that the winner of the recent elections will agree to forming a coalition government consisting of representatives of all four winning parties, and in this case the most Alawi can aspire to is a reasonable number of key ministerial portfolios. Meanwhile, Iran has strong reasons for containing Alawi, behind whom Tehran sees its regional competitors and, of course, Washington. The coming weeks will afford Iran an excellent opportunity to test its strength in Iran. As the negotiations between the four winning parties continue, Iran and the US will be pulling the strings behind the scenes, and Iran will probably continue to apply the logic described above. The more Iran can convince Washington that it needs Iranian cooperation in Iraq, the more it will be able to counter pressures due to the country's nuclear programme. The Obama administration, which, lacking sufficient intelligence, is not keen to wage a military offensive over Iran's nuclear facilities, will continue its campaign to obtain international approval for economic sanctions against Iran, and Iran will do everything in its power to ensure that negotiations over the formation of a new Iraqi government drag on. Former US vice-president Dick Cheney and Bush were too precipitate when they proclaimed victory in Iraq. No tears were shed when they left office, and they managed to ensure that the incoming Obama administration was left saddled with a tragic legacy in Iraq: the country now sits atop of a sectarian volcano and at the mercy of Iran. * The writer is director of the Cairo-based Al Sharq Centre for Regional and Strategic Studies.
