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Commentary
by
U.S. Alliance for Democratic Iran
Tehran’s
Interference with Iraq’s Elections
This Sunday when general elections are held in
Iraq, we will witness if Tehran has been
successful to turn years of its covert and overt
political, security, and financial meddling into
political gains for its Iraqi surrogates.
We will also see how successful the Iraqis of
Shiite and Sunni backgrounds will be in
thwarting Tehran’s plan by electing
non-sectarian and independent Iraqis to the
Parliament to form the next government.
Iran rulers have tremendous amount of experience
in exploiting democratic processes such as
elections to advance their anti-democratic
agenda. After all, this is what they have
practiced for three decades in Iran. In Iraq,
they are putting their know-how in practice so
that the next Iraqi government would be even
more Tehran-leaning than what it is now. They
channel Iran’s oil money – at the expense of
further economic hardship for Iranians – through
the Quds Force into Iraq to buy candidates and
votes.
When this ploy meets the innate Iraqis’ proud
sense of nationalism, the clerical regime puts
the Quds Forces and its Iraqi operatives to work
to bomb, assassinate, and fuel the sectarian
strife.
The admirable tenacity and resilience of Iraqi
people and their deep sense of nationalism is
indeed the most vital element in blocking Iran’s
westwards destabilizing advance. This explains
why, immediately after the 2003 war, Tehran
began targeting Iraqi nationalism and
assassinating Iraqi nationalist in the military,
security, and political spheres by its proxies.
The secular and nationalist Iraqis must be
helped and empowered in their defining struggle
to save Iraq from the expansionist and
domineering designs of Iran rulers. The
post-election period - and until the governing
coalition is formed - would expectedly be
turbulent and unstable. During this period and
in the remaining days until the Sunday
elections, Washington needs to be fully prepared
to frustrate Iran’s political and intelligence
blitz and covert actions.
An Iraqi tribal leader recently told the TIME
magazine that once the U.S. pulls out of Iraq,
“Iran will take us.” Countless Iraqi and
American lives have been sacrificed for a
professed democratic and independent Iraq. It
would be a travesty to let Tehran hijack Iraq
and turn the whole region upside down. (USADI)
USADI
Commentary reflects the viewpoints of the US Alliance
for Democratic Iran in respect to issues and events
which directly or indirectly impact the US policy toward
Iran |