As instability and violence continue to plague Iraq, Iran has undertaken an increasingly ambitious campaign to defend its own interests in the oil-rich state. The operation, one of the most extensive undertaken by the country's ruling clerics, relies primarily on the strong religious ties that bind Tehran's Shi'a government with Iraq's majority Shi'a population. Yet despite the policy's success so far in exercising Iranian influence, it is a strategy that runs the risk of a strong backlash from within Iraq itself.
Iran's effort encompasses not only generous financial assistance to an array of Iraqi Shi'a parties and organizations. Iran bankrolls the activities of mainstream Shi'a groups like the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Islamic Dawa Party, and has built strong ties to rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Ahmad Chalabi's secular Iraqi National Congress as well as to the Kurds. At the same time, Tehran is believed to have deployed a sizable contingent of its Revolutionary Guards Corps on the ground for intelligence-gathering purposes, and, borrowing a page from the Iranian-funded Hezbollah organization, has also undertaken provision of such social services as clinics and schools.
While Iraq's government routinely rails against Iran's presence and the US, concerned by Tehran's nuclear energy program, turns a wary eye little motivation exists for Tehran to reverse its interventionist strategy. As an August 27 report on post-Saddam Iraq published by the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs concludes, "Iran arguably gained most from the invasion of Iraq which left it in a position of increased geopolitical strength."
Both religion and national security drive the Iranian campaign. Iraq is home to Shi'a Islam's holiest sites. Iraq and Iran's leading clerical families are bound by marriage as well as religious beliefs. The seminary in the Iraqi town of Najaf has always been the leading center of Shi'a learning, and many experts believe that, in the eyes of Shi'a clerics, it already surpasses the holy Iranian city of Qom in stature and prestige.
The presence of these factors make Iraq a vital country for Iran's religious heritage, but the US presence in the country and the anti-Iran rhetoric of the Bush administration appear to have reinforced Iranian leaders' belief that strong ties to Iraq will protect Iran's national security.
According to one University of Tehran political scientist, Iran's activities should not come as a surprise to policymakers in Washington. "[T]here has been next to zero reconstruction in Iraq by the occupying forces, so a country like Iran can fill in the void," said the political scientist, who requested anonymity. "Under these circumstances who could blame Iran?"
However, this assertive strategy is not without its pitfalls. According to experts, Prime Minster Iyad Alawi is currently engaged in a delicate campaign to win the cooperation of ex-Baathist officials and military officers to bolster Iraq's fledgling government. Vilifying Iran, Iraq's foe in the 1980-1988 war that killed as many as 1 million people, could go a long way in gaining this group's trust, and potentially splitting the armed, Shi'a-led resistance.
In recent weeks, Iraqi government officials have repeatedly denounced the Islamic Republic of Iran for pursuing policies designed to stifle democracy and expand an Iranian network of "spies and saboteurs." According to Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim Shalaan, Iran is "Iraq's enemy number one." Alawi himself has pointedly refused to travel to Iran.
Keenly aware of the need for balance, Iran appears to be making as much use of caution as of infiltration. Faleh Jabar, a visiting scholar at the US Institute for Peace in Washington, said that the intervention of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani the Iranian-born head of Iraq's Shiites -- in the violence this August around the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf both preserved the peace and persuaded Iran's clerics to give qualified support to the Alawi government and talks with rebel Moqtada al-Sadr.
"Sistani is arguably the highest authorities in Shi'a Islam today. No one can afford to openly defy his injunctions and maintain credibility among the faithful for very long." Iranian leaders are also keenly aware Ayatollah al-Sistani has confounded the Bush administration's plans on several occasions, including its plans for an Interim Constitution and a timetable for national elections.
At the same time, though, many conservative hardliners in Tehran see advantages to gain from a destabilized Iraq, states The Royal Institute of International Affairs' "Iraq in Transition" report. Such a scenario could not only pin down the US in a protracted conflict, but have the advantage of providing additional justification for the clerics' own government. "Arguably, a dynamic exists in which conservative authoritarians have a vested interest in continued instability within Iraq, as a means of both keeping the US preoccupied and justifying further repression at home."
In the end, however, the ruling establishment recognizes the limits to the benefits of such instability, the report goes on to say. One sensitive region in particular: the western province of Khuzestan, which contains large oil deposits. "If fragmentation occurs but state stability is not achieved, Iran will benefit as long as the disputes which arise are contained," the report stated. "Should the state collapse, Iran will seek to influence and contain tensions but the risk that conflicts would spill over across the border would cause serious concern in Iran."
Editor's note:
Ardeshir Moaveni is a freelance journalist specializing in Iranian politics.
