Both Tehran and Washington have heavily invested in Iraq's forthcoming parliamentary elections, making the voting even more crucial, writes Salah Hemeid Parliamentary elections in any country tend to be influenced by local issues and concerns and sometimes by personalities. While politics is more complicated than that, voters still tend to give their votes to the candidates they trust and will serve their immediate political, economic and social interests. Yet, as Iraqis head to the ballot boxes next month for the country's parliamentary elections, the business of winning elections has become more associated with a fierce debate over Iran's and the United States' interference in the voting than in the voters' basic needs, such as security, fighting corruption and the provision of services. Given Iraq's geo-strategic significance and Washington's and Tehran's competing influence in the embattled country since the 2003 US-led invasion, the upcoming elections are becoming another battleground in the current US-Iranian standoff for regional supremacy. With Iran backing the Iraqi Shias in their attempts to exclude many Sunni candidates from running in the elections on the pretext that they are linked to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, and the United States pressing for broader Sunni participation, the two countries seem to be taking part in Iraq's ever-deepening sectarian wrangling. Voters on 7 March will decide which candidates are to fill the 325 seats in the Iraqi parliament, with the winning bloc nominating the prime minister and the main cabinet posts. While some Sunnis are calling for a boycott of the vote after the banning of some of their candidates, the Shias are accusing Washington of trying to bring the Baathists back to power. Such Shia-Sunni bickering has raised fears of worsening sectarian tensions in an already volatile campaign and triggered concern well beyond Iraq's borders. In recent weeks US and Iranian officials have accused each other of interfering in Iraq's elections, which many see as a landmark in deciding which way the country is going seven years after its invasion by the United States and the overthrow of the largely Sunni- dominated Saddam regime. In a speech marking the 31st anniversary of Iran's Islamic Revolution in February, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States of interfering in the Iraqi elections. In the first such remarks on the elections to be made at such a high level in Iran, Ahmadinejad claimed Washington was pressing Baghdad to allow the Baathists back into the country's political system. He added that the US move ran counter to US intentions in invading Iraq in 2003, which aimed at toppling the Baath regime. Meanwhile, several senior US officials have accused Iran of making a new push to influence Iraqi affairs ahead of an expected US military withdrawal. General Ray Odierno, commander of US forces in the country, has accused Shia politicians Ahmed Chalabi and Ali Al-Lami of the Accountability and Justice Commission, which was behind the ban on Sunni candidates, of doing Iran's bidding in seeking to undermine Sunni political power. The US has "direct intelligence" that Chalabi and Al-Lami "are clearly influenced by Iran" and meet regularly with an Iranian official who "sits at the right- hand side of the Al-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani," Odierno was quoted as telling Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation magazine last week. US ambassador in Iraq Christopher Hill also accused Tehran of trying to torpedo Washington's efforts to stabilise Iraq ahead of US troop withdrawals, due to begin about six weeks after the poll, in a speech last week. "There is no question that Iran has shown a very malevolent face in Iraq. It has probed for weaknesses. It has tried to frustrate US and Iraqi common goals," Hill said in his speech at Washington's United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Such comments are likely to be coming now because the Obama administration has decided to change course in Iraq in order to face up to Iran's mounting challenge. While the previous Bush administration staunchly backed a de-Baathification drive in Iraq aimed largely at the country's former ruling Sunni community, Washington's change of heart now seems to be designed to counter what it sees as growing Iranian influence in the country. By bringing Baathists back into the Iraqi civil service, security forces and army, the Obama administration could be hoping to counter Iranian influence in the country as part of "a reverse strategy" similar to the one adopted in Japan after 1945, when a purge of Japanese nationalists was halted so that they could be used to counter the threat of communism. However, if this is the Obama administration's intention then it will naturally infuriate the country's majority Shias, who suspect Washington of trying to deprive them of their hard-won control of power in Iraq after decades of marginalisation by minority Sunnis. On Saturday, the Shia Iraqi National Alliance described Odierno's and Hill's remarks as "regrettable". The alliance considers attempts by the United States to rehabilitate the Baathists as "a coup against the political process," it said in a statement. Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, himself a Shia, echoed the alliance's remarks, warning "foreigners", in this case the Americans, not to interfere in the country's elections. However, even putting aside the dispute about the role of the Baathists in the country's forthcoming elections, questions about the US-Iranian rivalry over Iraq were always likely to occupy a prominent place in the two countries' strategies towards Iraq. Whereas the Iranians see Saddam's ouster as a triumph, and Iran will work hard to prevent his followers from making a comeback, Washington will do its best to try to prevent Iran from using Iraq as a lever to expand its interests in the region, threatening US interests and those of its allies. In his USIP speech, Hill made it clear that Washington's interests in Iraq were long-term and would not be diminished by the US troop withdrawals. "We are there, and the US embassy is there, for the long haul. People who equate our interest in Iraq with our troop presence have, may I say, kind of missed the point. Because we are interested in a long-term relationship," Hill said. In an apparent warning to Iraqi Shia leaders not to bank on support from Iran, Hill said that, "one of the great calling cards we have in Iraq is that we can introduce Iraq to the international community. At present, Iran can introduce Iraq to North Korea, and not much more." Washington also indicated last week that it might be ready to switch gear in Iraq in order to avoid any humiliation at the hands of Iran. The US television news show ABC News reported on Thursday that the US military operation in Iraq was to be renamed "Operation New Dawn" later this year. According to a Pentagon memo obtained by ABC News, the change, set to take place in September, "sends a strong signal that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended and that our forces are operating under a new mission. It also presents opportunities to synchronise strategic communications initiatives, reinforce our commitment to honour the security agreement and recognise our evolving relationship with the Iraqi government," the memo said. With the Obama administration apparently rethinking its overall strategy towards Iran, including the Iranian nuclear threat and possible regional expansion, various voices in Washington are calling on President Obama to change his approach to Iran's role in Iraq. In an article that appeared in the Washington Post newspaper earlier this month, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger urged the Obama administration to "find its voice to convey that Iraq continues to play a significant role in American strategy." While it is too early to say whether the Obama administration intends to abandon its original hands-off strategy in Iraq and get more involved in the country in order to stall Iran's regional ambitions, it is clear that the results of next month's Iraqi elections will be crucial in deciding the most important foreign policy issue currently bedeviling the US president: how to deal with Iran.
