Shiites, Sunnis say Tehran is winner of U.S. invasion
By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent; Hassan Jarrah in Najaf and
Nadeem Majeed contributed to this report
March 8, 2007
BAGHDAD -- In the cafeteria of Iraq's parliament, Shiite legislators
slip into Persian
when they don't want their conversations overheard. In the holy city of
Najaf,
an Iranian charity helps newlyweds buy furniture. Iranian weapons,
freshly
manufactured, are turning up in arms caches seized from insurgents in
and
around Baghdad.
These are among the many ways in which Iran's soaring influence is
being
felt in Iraq, where Iran's complex entanglement in the affairs of its
neighbor
lies at the heart of the schism threatening to tear Iraq--and the
region--apart.
To Iraq's Sunnis, Iran's ascendancy as a regional power and its close
relationship with the Shiite-led government represent a pernicious
threat to
the survival of Iraq's Arab identity.
"America handed Iraq to Iran on a golden plate," says Sunni politician
Saleh al-Mutlaq. "Everything Iran fought for in the Iran-Iraq war,
America
gave to it when it invaded."
To Iraq's Shiites, however, Iran is a natural ally, a neighbor whose
friendship should be welcomed after decades of hostility that included
the
1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Iranian officials confirmed Wednesday that they would send an envoy to
a
meeting in Baghdad on Saturday with the U.S., Syria and others to
discuss
Iraq's security. As that conference of midlevel diplomats takes shape,
Iraqis
agree on only one thing: So far, it is Iran, not the U.S., that has
benefited
most from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
"Iran has emerged as the biggest winner of the United States' war,"
writes
Shiite scholar Vali Nasr in the current issue of the prestigious
Foreign
Policy magazine, which ranks Iran No. 1 among the top 10 beneficiaries
of the
war. "For Iran, the war in Iraq turned out to be a strategic windfall."
Indeed, Iran barely had to lift a finger to win this round in its
centuries-old rivalry with Iraq. By removing the two staunchly Sunni
regimes
ruling Iran's neighbors--the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Baathists
in
Iraq--the U.S. eliminated the two biggest security threats to Iran's
borders
within a period of less than two years.
The advent of democracy in Iraq further leveraged Iran's influence, by
installing in Baghdad a Shiite-dominated government, many of whose
leaders had
been sheltered in Iran during the years they stood in opposition to
Saddam
Hussein's regime, disposing them toward friendship with Iran.
Arab Iraq, long ruled by Sunnis, has traditionally served as a bulwark
against the Shiite Persians to the east. Now under Shiite rule, Iraq
has
become the vanguard for Iran's expansionist ambitions in the Arab
world,
Sunnis say.
In the Palestinian territories, Iran funds the radical Hamas movement.
In
Lebanon, its protege Hezbollah is flexing its muscles, demanding a
greater
share of power in the Lebanese government. Iran's push to acquire a
nuclear
weapon is regarded as a direct threat to the strategic interests of the
Arab
oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf.
`It's everywhere'
In Baghdad, Sunnis now see an Iranian hand in almost every decision the
Iraqi government takes. The extremist group Al Qaeda in Iraq refers to
Baghdad's Green Zone, where both the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi
government are
based, as "the American-Persian-Zionist Zone."
"You can feel it. It's everywhere," said Mithal Alusi, a moderate Sunni
parliamentarian, who cites his own personal encounter with Iran's
methods as
evidence of the reach of Iranian influence into Iraqi politics.
Last October, Iran's ambassador to Iraq announced he was paying a visit
to
Alusi's office. The ambassador brought a beautiful Persian rug and
offered to
finance Alusi's small Iraqi Nation party. Alusi declined the offer.
"If they're offering to fund me, a Sunni, you can only imagine who else
they are paying," said Alusi. "They don't ask for conditions, but it
makes
people think twice about saying anything against Iran."
U.S. officials say they have been aware for some time that Iran is
financing a wide array of parties and politicians.
Recently, the U.S. military has accused Iran of funding and arming the
Mahdi Army, Iraq's biggest militia, which is controlled by radical
Shiite
cleric Moqtada Sadr. The U.S. also accuses Iran of supplying
sophisticated
roadside bombs to Shiite militant groups, though ranking American
officials
have said they still can't prove that the Iranian government is
directly
involved.
Increased pressure
As U.S. pressure on Iran has intensified in recent weeks, however,
Iraq's
Shiite leaders have been seeking to distance themselves from Iran.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who spent his exile years in Damascus,
Syria, and is regarded as one of the least pro-Iranian members of his
Dawa
Party, has often tried to dissuade Iran from interfering in Iraq, but
to no
avail, his aides say.
"Maliki has always maintained that Iranian influence and meddling
exist,
and it will have to end," said an adviser to al-Maliki, speaking on
condition
of anonymity. "But they don't give you a clear answer. He always says
you
can't get anything out of them."
Iraq's Shiite leaders say their relationship with Iran is misunderstood
and
that the suspicions of Arab states toward the Shiite-led government are
unjustified.
"The problem is not Iran. The problem is how Arabs look at the Shiites.
They ask, are they Arabs? Are they Iraqis? They label us as Iranian
collaborators, and that has caused problems in Iraq for the past 50
years,"
said Humam Hammoudi, the head of the foreign affairs committee in
Iraq's
parliament and a leader of the Iran-founded Badr Brigade who spent
nearly 20
years in exile in Iran.
"If [Sunni Arabs] don't adjust this attitude, Iraq's problems will only
magnify and intensify," he said.
Tourism, trade and faith
Across the predominantly Shiite south, where Iran's influence is most
profoundly felt, the fall of Hussein's regime unleashed a surge of
tourism,
trade and religious exchanges across a border that had been off-limits
to
Shiites on both sides for decades.
In Najaf, Shiite Islam's holiest city, Iranian tour buses bring 1,200
pilgrims a day outside the gold-domed Imam Ali shrine, where a major,
Iranian-funded renovation is under way. An Iranian delegation is in
town to
find ways of boosting that number to 5,000.
Local markets are flooded with Iranian products, "from bricks to
socks,"
said one resident. Street vendors have hastily learned Persian in order
to
communicate with the tourists.
But there are tensions too. Najaf residents complain that the Iranian
buses
are allowed to drive right up to the shrine, while Iraqi visitors have
to
disembark nearly a mile away and walk through the barricaded streets.
Iraqis
whisper that the city has been infiltrated by the Ittila'at, the
Iranian
intelligence service.
"There are many differences between the Shiites of Iraq and Iran," said
Hammoudi, the Shiite legislator. "We want democracy, Iran wants Islamic
rule.
. . . We want good relations with America, they have problems with
America. We
want an open economy, their economy is closed. We feel our Arabism, and
we
wrote it in our constitution."
Indeed, the relationship between Iran and Iraq's Shiites is far more
complicated than is portrayed by many in the region, said Joost
Hiltermann of
the Amman, Jordan, office of the International Crisis Group, who
detects an
element of hysteria in the direst warnings about Iranian expansionism.
`Strong animosity'
"Not all Iranians are Shiite, and not all Shiites are Iranian. Iran has
influence over some but not others," he said. "The majority of Shiites
don't
support the Iranian regime and they're not Persians. There's very
strong
animosity between Arabs and Persians."
Yet, although Iran's influence may sometimes be overstated, there is
little
likelihood of diminishing its links with Iraq's Shiite leaders as long
as the
schism persists between Sunnis and Shiites, said Nasr, the Shiite
scholar who
is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"They're natural friends in the current environment," he said in a
telephone interview. "As long as you have a Sunni-Shiite civil war,
that's
going to decide where loyalties lie."
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lsly@tribune.com
- - -
Sunnis and Shiites; Two forms of Islam
Much of the sectarian violence in Iraq is between Sunni and Shiite
Muslims.
Although Shiites make up about 60 percent of the country, they
constitute only
about 10 percent to 20 percent of Muslims worldwide.
Neighboring Iran has the world's largest Shiite population.
ORIGIN OF THE SCHISM
After the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632, a disagreement arose over
who
should succeed him as leader of Islam. Two main factions emerged,
creating a
rift that remains almost 14 centuries later.
Shiites believe that Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, was his
rightful successor, and that Ali's descendants are the true leaders of
Islam.
Sunnis believe that Muhammad's most pious companions were his rightful
successors, and that the leaders of Islam may be chosen by consensus.
OTHER DIFFERENCES
- Shiite clerics generally have more authority among their followers
than
Sunni clerics do among theirs.
- Most Shiites reject the idea of predestination (that God has decided
who
is saved and who is damned), which Sunnis accept.
- Shiites allow temporary marriages and use different inheritance laws.
Sources: Tribune reporting, University of Texas Library Online