|
Iraqi officials fear
that the big winner from next month's historic
election will be its powerful neighbour and former
enemy, Iran.
The countries share a 1,000-mile border, stretching
from the flat desert wastes and marshes of the south
to the stark mountains of the north.
There are plenty of innocent travellers crossing the
frontier: pilgrims on their way to visit Shia Muslim
holy places, or people with family and friends on
the other side, a result of Saddam Hussein's
relentless purging of the Shia majority in Iraq.
In the region around the mountain town of Tuwella
they rarely bother using the official crossing, a
time-consuming and costly enterprise, instead simply
walking over the hillside above the town.
There are, however, less innocent visitors.
Officials of Iraq's interim government maintain that
hundreds of Iranian agents have infiltrated the
country and joined the insurgency in an attempt to
keep American forces unbalanced.
At the same time, they say, Teheran is maintaining a
stranglehold on Shia political parties in Iraq.
The two largest, the Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq and the ad-Dawa party, spent
decades of exile under Iranian tutelage and have
formed a single voting bloc for the Jan 30 poll.
Many analysts expect them to command a majority over
the secular party led by the interim prime minister,
Iyad Allawi, and officials fear Iran will be sitting
pretty, with a pliant government of a strong Islamic
bent in Baghdad.
"There is a real concern that the interference we
are seeing from Iran at the moment is just the
beginning, and that Baghdad could be slowly slipping
into the orbit of Teheran," said Safa Rasul, chief
of staff of Iraq's National Security Council.
Iraqi leaders from all sides called for calm
yesterday after Sunday's suicide attacks which
killed more than 60 people. The elections would take
place on time, they promised.
But amid concerns over the dire security situation,
Iraq, with its traditional ruling Sunni elite,
continues to be uncomfortable with its powerful
neighbour, the largest Shia nation.
The war between the two in the 1980s, one of the
bloodiest fought anywhere, began with an Iraqi
invasion after it accused Iran of making a land
grab.
In the Kurdish-controlled north officials say they
have intercepted a steady stream of fighters from
the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, which they say
Teheran has sheltered since the US-led invasion to
topple Saddam.
"Iran is continuing to work with Ansar," said one
senior Kurdish official, who believed there were
1,500 members working in Iraq for the Ansar group,
an affiliate of al-Qa'eda.
"They are trained and recruited across the border
for terrorist attacks in the south of Iraq," said
the official.
For their part, US officials in Baghdad see Teheran
as playing a more ambivalent role in Iraq's
insurgency.
They agree that money and weapons are crossing the
border, but say the support is coming from
individual clerical organisations, rather than
representing a concerted government policy, a
reflection of Iran's joint rule by government and
religious bodies.
"We believe some ayatollahs have taken an active
role, others have not. They're waiting to see what
happens, with a finger in every pie," said a senior
American official.
Privately, officials concede that Iraq is likely to
take "an Iranian turn" after the election, a notion
unimaginable before the invasion, when
neo-conservatives in Washington believed they could
create the Middle East's first secular democracy.
Now many grudgingly accept that the elections are
likely to usher in an Islamic state.
The south, where most of the Shia majority live,
already has a strong Iranian and Islamic tone.
As in Iran, religious law imposed by the Hawsa, the
Shia clerical body, now rivals secular courts.
Religious parties, often with militia backing, hold
considerable sway over local government.
There are hundreds of Iranian operatives in the
south, known simply as ittila'at - the Persian word
for intelligence.
One group, Thar-Allah, was set-up with Iranian money
and openly pledges its loyalty to Grand Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei of Iran.
The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution and ad-Dawa
party play down their Iranian roots although they
are none the less prevalent.
Both parties were forced into exile in Teheran by
Saddam in the 1970s and early '80s. In 1983, the
Supreme Council, under the tutelage of the late
Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim, formed the Badr
Brigade from Iraqi exiles.
The brigade, trained by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps, fought on Iran's side during the
Iran-Iraq war. Since returning to Baghdad in 2003,
and for some time before that, the Supreme Council's
call for an Islamic revolution along Iranian lines -
as the name of the organisation suggests - has been
softened.
But asked what level of influence Iran has over the
parties, one western diplomat replied: "Vast. In the
south of the country the whole idea of Iraqi
nationalism has broken down. There's a strong sense
of community with Iran."
The Supreme Council and ad-Dawa recently formed the
United Iraqi Alliance with several smaller Shia
parties with the approval of Iraq's senior Shia
cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
According to his aides, the Iranian-born ayatollah
wants an Iraqi state that strongly encourages
Islamic law in all aspects of life, from controlling
women's dress and mandatory prayer lessons in
schools to Islamic codes of marriage and
inheritance, without the overpowering Islamism of
the revolutionary regime in Iran.
The effect of Shia dominance in government after the
elections is likely to reduce Iran's support for
cross-border terrorism, say some Iraqi officials.
"We're going to see a lot less violence when Teheran
no longer feels threatened," said the Kurdish
interior minister, Saeed Othman.
Back in the frontier town of Tuwella, Omar Ali, who
regularly crosses the border to visit family
members, cracks one of the locally grown walnuts
between his hands at his greengrocer's shop, and
ponders Iraq's future.
"We used to have a lot of trade with Iran. They
haven't always been our enemies," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Top |
® 