Iran's theocracy has lot riding on Iraqi democracy
By Barbara Slavin, USA TODAY
As Iraqis brave bombs and bullets to vote in elections Sunday, their Iranian neighbors will be watching a process that in some ways could have almost as much impact here as in Baghdad.
If Iraq (news - web sites)'s Shiite Muslim majority dominates the voting, as is now expected, Iran's own Shiite government could suddenly have a friendly neighbor after decades of hostility that erupted into war between the two countries in the 1980s.
But if Iraq's new government can't bring security to what is now a chaotic and violent nation, Iraq's instability, which is already having an effect here, could spread across the border into Iran.
Iran's government also hopes that its Shiite co-religionists in Iraq will find a way to push out the 150,000 U.S. troops who could pose a threat to the regime in Tehran. President Bush (news - web sites) labeled Iran, along with North Korea (news - web sites) and Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Iraq, as members of an "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address. Both he and Vice President Cheney have implicitly threatened military intervention to stop what they say is Iran's effort to develop a nuclear bomb.
Iraq's elections and the promise of a new government provide "a mixture of benefits and threats," says Hossein Moussavian, who heads the foreign policy committee of Iran's National Security Council. "Everything depends on American policy in this region. Are they really going to leave Iraq after the election, or are they going to expand their domination? If the Americans are going to be our new neighbors, this will be a threat to the national security of Iran."
On one point, Iranians agree: The toppling of Saddam "has been in the national interest of Iran," Moussavian says. Saddam started an eight-year war with Iran in 1980 that killed more than a million people in both countries. Saddam's Sunni Muslim regime sought to block the export of Iran's Shiite revolution and ruthlessly persecuted Iraq's Shiite majority.
Taking power
Now, that majority is poised to take power, which holds out the hope of greater security and new cooperation between like-minded governments.
A Shiite-dominated government in Iraq would reassure Iranians still deeply scarred by the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. Most older Iranians knew or were related to someone who died in that bitter struggle, and their main concern is that Iraq never threaten their country again.
But while Saddam's fall and the likely rise of a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq are welcome here, the U.S. failure to stabilize Iraq has been a problem for Iran.
Moussavian says there has been a rise in the smuggling of weapons across the Iran-Iraq border, which could fuel criminal activity inside Iran. And the chaos in Iraq has gotten so bad that on Jan. 16, Iran's Interior Ministry advised Iranians not to travel to Iraq "due to the worsening situation there." Iranian religious pilgrims to the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq have been killed in suicide bombings, and others have been arrested on suspicion of being agents of the Iranian government.
One factor that could help propel a victory for Iraqi Shiite candidates Sunday is voting by Iraqi expatriates. More than 50,000 Iraqis living in Iran have registered to participate in Sunday's elections. That's the largest number among the 14 countries where Iraqi expatriates are being given a chance to vote.
Iran has been just as eager as the Bush administration for Iraq's elections not to be postponed, and Iranian commentators are anticipating a victory Sunday for a Shiite-dominated alliance. The conservative newspaper Tehran Times, which often echoes the official government view here, asserted on Tuesday that Ayatollah Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, an Iran-backed cleric who leads the Shiite candidate slate, is "tipped to become prime minister of Iraq" after the elections, and that the new government will demand the withdrawal of U.S. forces "as soon as possible."
Established ties
Although al-Hakim is an Iraqi, he and the political party he heads, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, have strong ties to Iran. Hakim fled here from Iraq about 20 years ago after many of his relatives were killed by Saddam's regime. SCIRI was formed in exile in Iran and moved to Iraq after Saddam's ouster but still maintains a handsome office in Tehran - a tacit sign of the Iranian government's blessing.
Majid Ghammas, head of SCIRI's Tehran office, dismisses the notion that SCIRI would duplicate Iran's Shiite theocracy in Iraq. Ghammas, who fled Iraq as a teenager after he was jailed by Saddam's regime for 40 days at Baghdad's infamous Abu Ghraib prison, says the Iraqi people will decide what form of government they want. "We are not going to impose anything," he says.
Al-Hakim and fellow candidates have likewise insisted that they will not seek an Iranian-style Islamic state if they win, and even some Iranian officials say they do not want to impose clerical rule in Iraq or deprive Iraq's Sunni minority of a share of power.
"It would not be in the interests of Iran for Shiites to get full dominance" in Iraq, Moussavian says, because that would provoke Iraq's other ethnic groups - particularly the Sunni minority that ruled under Saddam - to continue the violence that plagues Iraq now and threatens to devolve into civil war. "We would really appreciate the role of Sunnis to be respected, not only in the parliament but in the government and judiciary," Moussavian says.
Michael Rubin, an Iraq scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, says such declarations are genuine. "The Iranians don't want a 'turban' to be prime minister," says Rubin, referring to the characteristic turbans worn by Islamic clerics. "They don't want the competition. They want a little brother, not a competitor - a nice, compliant government." |
