Iran's Hostile Policies in Iraq

Absolute MUST READ : Comprehesive and expert analysis by James Phillips of Heritage Foundation on what we're up against in Iraq, catastrophic consequences of leaving Iraq and some tangible solutions to constrain and deter Iran from continuing its hostile policies against the United States in Iraq. Here are some excerpts:

[...]Iran's Goals in Iraq

Iran sought to expand its influence over Iraq long before the 2003 war in Iraq. After the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran's new regime sought to sub­vert Iraq's Sunni-dominated regime by radicalizing Iraq's Shia majority, which is more than 60 percent of the Iraqi population. Iran's subversive efforts were one factor that provoked Iraqi dictator Sad­dam Hussein to invade Iran in September 1980, resulting in a bloody eight-year war that greatly weakened both countries.

During that conflict, Tehran's revolutionary regime gave sanctuary and aid to the Iraqi opposition, includ­ing the political parties that form the backbone of the current Iraqi government. Iran invested its political capital in a wide variety of Iraqi political parties and militias. As a result, Iranian influence in post-Saddam Iraq is "substantial and growing."[1]

Iran's closest ally is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which Tehran helped to create and molded while it was in exile in Iran. The SCIRI won the most seats in Iraq's 2005 elections and is the dominant political force within the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite umbrella group that claims 128 seats in Iraq's 275-seat parliament.

Tehran also retains strong influence within the Dawa Party, an older, more moderate Shiite political party that includes Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.Iran also enjoys good relations with the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdi­stan, the two main Kurdish political parties. Both received sanctuary and support from Iran while they resisted Saddam Hussein's repressive regime.

Iran's good relations with these various political par­ties are understandable given the long history of Ira­nian support. Tehran is believed to have recruited agents from within the various parties who now hold key positions throughout the Iraqi govern­ment bureaucracy.Even more troubling is that, while maintaining good relations with these mainstays of Iraq's govern­ment, Iran is also pursuing a covert policy of arming and training militias, including many associated with these political parties, that pose a long-term threat to the prospects of success for a broad-based Iraqi government.

Tehran seeks to preclude the emergence of a stable democratic government in Iraq, its historical archrival, that could become an American ally against Iran. Although the political parties in Iraq's ruling coalition depend on contin­ued U.S. political, economic, and military support, their militias are much more hostile to the contin­ued coalition troop presence and could become use­ful allies of Iran in a possible war with the United States.

The militia leaders are also more likely to share Iran's goal of driving out coalition forces because such an outcome would increase their own power and importance within Iraq.In addition to driving out Western troops and Western influence, the Tehran regime would prefer a weak and divided Iraq to an Iraq with a united and broad-based government.

Even if such a govern­ment were not allied with the United States, it would pose an ideological threat to Iran's theocratic regime because it would demonstrate the viability of a secu­lar democratic system in a Shia-majority nation, thereby encouraging Iranian reformers and opposi­tion movements to increase their efforts to reduce the political power of Iran's unelected clerics.

Iran's radical clerics are also uncomfortable with the knowledge that the Shia religious leaders in the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala wield an inde­pendent religious influence that could undermine their own base of legitimacy. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shiite religious leader in Iraq, is an influential cleric who outranks most if not all of the clerics in the Iranian regime. Although he was born in Iran, he rejects Ayatollah Khomeini's harsh brand of Islamic ideology and opposes Iran's system of clerical rule.To undermine al-Sistani, the Iranians have thrown their support behind Sayed Moqtada al-Sadr, his chief rival.

The Iranian regime was initially wary of al-Sadr because he remained in Iraq during Saddam's rule and had an independent power base as well as political differences with their other Shiite allies, who had fled Iraq and were more dependent on Iran, but in recent years, Iran has provided increasing financial support, weapons, and training to the Jaish al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army), al-Sadr's militia...Read the rest of this comprehensive piece. You'll be glad you did.