Iran-Iraq Bhai Bhai

LONDON

Unnoticed by most Americans, while US President George W. Bush extolled Iraqas "a young but hopeful democracy" with a "unity government" in hisnational television address on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Iraq’s chiefexecutive, Nouri al-Maliki, was hobnobbing with the leaders of Iran, a member ofBush’s "Axis of Evil."

On the eve of his meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei– a rare honor for a visiting dignitary – Prime Minister Maliki called theIslamic Republic of Iran "a good friend and brother." Such a statement runscounter to Bush’s policy of isolating Iran from the international community byfocusing exclusively on Tehran’s uranium enrichment. At the same time itillustrates that the regimes deriving legitimacy from different versions ofdemocracy in the Middle East can be warm friends.

Maliki followed the footsteps of his predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who leda delegation of 10 cabinet ministers during a Tehran visit a little more than ayear ago. Both Maliki and Jaafari are leaders of the Islamic Daawa, a Shiitereligious faction that found refuge in Iran during the Iran-Iraq War in the1980s.

Jaafari’s state visit to Iran was preceded by his Defense Minister Sadounal-Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab. "I have come to Iran to ask forgiveness for whatSaddam Hussein had done [to Iran]," Dulaimi said. "Iraq will not be a sourceof insecurity and instability for any of its neighbors."

The process of reconciliation between the two neighbors began in May 2004when Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi arrived in post-Saddam Baghdad tomeet his Iraqi counterpart Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurdish leader who hadcollaborated with Iran against Saddam during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. Theyissued a joint statement: "Saddam committed aggression against Iran [in 1980],Kuwait [in 1990] and against the Iraqi people."

Dulaimi built on the foundation laid by Zebari and Kharrazi during his July2005 trip when he met Iranian counterpart Ali Shamkhani. At a joint pressconference, he announced that a mutual military and anti-terrorism cooperationagreement would include Iranian help with training Iraq’s reconstituted armedforces.

This came as a nasty shock to the Bush administration. To have a member ofits self-declared Axis of Evil involved in training Iraq’s emerging military– a project monopolized by the Pentagon – was unacceptable. Its unrelentingpressure on the Iraqi government resulted in the collapse of the proposedBaghdad-Tehran defense cooperation pact.

Even so, the underlying dynamic of closer ties between the two countriesremained intact. Indeed it received a boost when in the general election heldunder Iraq’s new constitution in January 2006 resulted in the United IraqiAlliance (UIA) of Shiite religious parties winning 80 percent of the seatsreserved for Shiites.

Earlier the UIA had succeeded in inserting a clause in the new constitutionstating that no Iraqi law shall violate the principles of Islam. This makes Iraqan Islamic republic in all but name.

Significantly, the first foreign leader greeted by the Maliki government,installed on May 20, was Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki. He metMaliki as well as Zebari, who retained the foreign ministry in the newgovernment.

"We do not want WMD [weapons of mass destruction] next door, but Iran’sprogram is for peaceful purposes," said Zebari. "We believe in the wisdom ofthe Islamic Republic leadership in handling the subject, and we are against anytension with the Islamic Republic."

Though a Sunni and a leader of a secular faction, the Kurdistan DemocraticParty (KDP), Zebari was acutely conscious of the 750-mile border that Iranshares with Iraq, part of it along Iraq’s Kurdistan region. That enabled Iranto help the militias of KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan to liberate athird of Kurdistan from Saddam’s rule during the Iran-Iraq War.

Zebari seemed equally conscious of the sectarian affinity existing betweenShiites in the two nations, with theological links between the Shiite holycities of Najaf, in Iraq, and Qom, in Iran, going back centuries.

That crucial historical factor loomed large before US President GeorgeHerbert Walker Bush after the 1991 Gulf War and led him to deny support to theanti-Saddam Shiite uprisings in southern Iraq. He realized that, freed fromSaddam’s dictatorship, the overwhelmingly Shiite southern Iraq would ally withIran. Tehran’s influence would thus extend to the oil-rich monarchies ofKuwait and Saudi Arabia.

In stark contrast, it now transpires that, as late as January 2003, hispresident son, George Walker, had not grasped the fact that Islam is dividedamong Sunnis and Shiites.

Bush Jr. was not alone among the top policymakers in Washington who neverbothered to grasp the salient points of Iraqi history and culture. Instead, theyaccepted unsubstantiated assertions of anti-Saddam exiles that the Iraqi peoplewere predominantly secular.

Until 1638, Mesopotamia, consisting of the Arab region of modern Iraq,changed hands between the Shiite Persian Safavid Empire and the Sunni OttomanTurkish Empire. Under the Safavids, Sunnis suffered persecution. Once theOttomans had finally annexed Mesopotamia in 1638, the majority Shiite communitybecame the underdog.

This continued after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after World War Iand the forming of modern Iraq with the addition of the Kurdish majorityprovince of Mosul by the victorious British, who installed a Sunni monarch inBaghdad. The overthrow of the monarchy in 1958 followed by a Baathist militarycoup in 1967 left intact the historic subordination of Shiites. Like subjugatedgroups elsewhere, Shiites found solace in religion, becoming more devout thantheir Sunni counterparts.

With the jack-boot of the Baathist dictatorship lifted and the principle ofone person, one vote, applied strictly, as planned by the Bush administration,Shiites were bound to be in the driving seat, with most opting for an Islamicstate.

As for Iran, US policymakers seem oblivious that the theocratic regime inTehran that they detest is the end-result of the actions taken by Washington.

After World War II, Iran was poised to evolve into a secular, multipartydemocracy that would pursue progressive nationalist policies and assume controlover the country’s oil.

When in 1951 Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh nationalized the petroleumindustry – Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, owned and managed by the British –Britain co-opted the US to overthrow the democratically elected government.

Soon the Central Intelligence Agency took over the task, with the British MI6as its junior partner, implementing a coup against Mossadegh in August 1953 andunveiling a royal dictatorship under Mohammed Reza Shah. A quarter centurylater, the Shah’s regime was overthrown by a revolutionary movement consistingof several political forces led by the mosque, the only institution that theShah, a nominal Shiite, could not curb.

Since then, Shiite clerics have established a political-administrative systemthat combines rule by Islamic law with a representative government. They claimthat the Islamic Republic caters not only to the material needs of its citizensbut also their spiritual needs.

It is arguable whether reality matches official claims. But there is littledoubt that Iran has tried to fashion its own model of democracy rooted in itshistory and culture.

In the final analysis, only a home-grown variety of democracy can take rootin the countries of the Middle East, not a Jeffersonian model imposed byAmerica. The fallout of the US intervention in Iran 1953 and Iraq 50 years laterhas virtually ensured rejection of the American model.

Dilip Hiro is the author of Secrets and Lies: Operation 'Iraqi Freedom'and After and The Iranian Labyrinth: Journeys Through Theocratic Iran andIts Furies, both published by Nation Books, the latter available in TheBritish edition of the latter, Iran Today, is distributed in India byResearch Press. Rights: © 2006 Yale Center for the Study ofGlobalization. YaleGlobalOnline