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USADI
Commentary
Tehran’s
Iraqi Hit List
True to his repeated pledge to make the
theocratic Iran a model for other countries in
the region, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is
working hard to make his regime’s treatment of
the press and free speech a model for Iraq.
The systematic closure of news publications and
imprisonment of journalists - a common practice
during Mohammad Khatami’s eight-year presidency
- has only worsened since Ahmadinejad and took
office. Human rights organizations have
consistently branded Iran as one of the most
dangerous countries for journalists.
Far worse is the fate of those journalists who
dare to report on Iran’s main opposition
movement, which advocates regime change, from a
religious tyranny to a democratic and secular
government.
In summer 2003, the editor and the senior staff
of the weekly Asia were arrested for publishing
a picture of Maryam Rajavi, the leader of Iran’s
main opposition coalition, the National Council
of Resistance of Iran. The weekly’s editors were
charged with acting against national security.
That was under Khatami. With Ahmadinejad at the
helm, hostility to free speech, roadside bombs
and financing proxy death squads are being
exported to the neighboring Iraq by the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). In Iraq,
Tehran has also displayed its zero tolerance for
those who support the Iranian resistance.
As more Iraqi political groups of different
stripes are waking up to the existential threats
the mullahs pose to a unified, stable and
democratic Iraq, Tehran’s agents are hunting
down the outspoken advocates of the growing
anti-Tehran campaign.
Last week, masked gunmen wearing police uniforms
gunned down Abdul-Rahim Nasrallah, a prominent
Iraqi politician, and 10 others in Shaabiya
television station in Baghdad. Nasrallah was the
leader of Iraq’s secular National Justice and
Progress Party and headed the stations’ board of
directors.
Reports from Iraq leave no doubt that the gunmen
were Tehran Iraqi agents of on assignment to
take out one of the most ardent critics of
Iran’s mullahs and their destabilizing campaign
in Iraq.
Similar to many other prominent Iraqi
politicians, Mr. Nasrallah viewed the staunchly
anti-fundamentalist Iranian Mojahedin as a
natural ally in Iraq. Just recently, he had
condemned Tehran’s support for sectarian
killings in Iraq and supported the continued
presence of the group in Iraq.
In recent months, the Mojahedin whose members
enjoy “protected persons” status under the
Fourth Geneva Convention in Camp Ashraf, has
suffered from a number of restrictions imposed
by the Iraqi government, including the denial of
its food, medicine, and fuel quotas. Neither did
the government take any action when water
pipelines from the Tigris River to Camp Ashraf
were blown up by terrorists.
Mr. Nasrallah’s murder was not an isolated case.
Last Tuesday, prominent Shiite cleric Ayatollah
Mohammad Moussawi al-Qasemi, who had denounced
Tehran’s growing meddling in Iraq’s internal
affairs was murdered by a remote-controlled
bomb.
As the leader of Iraq’s Islamic Unity Party,
Ayatollah al-Qasemi had voiced his backing for
the Iranian Mojahedin. His Party had issued a
statement in late August, emphasizing, “The PMOI
(the acronym for the Mojahedin) is the
antithesis and a formidable political barrier
against terrorism and fundamentalism of the
Iranian regime. For this reason, it is the No. 1
target of the enemy's political attacks and
negative propaganda”.
With future of Iraq at stake, a furious battle
is raging between Iran’s ruling regime and its
Iraq proxies on the one hand, and the emerging
front of the anti-fundamentalist and nationalist
Iraqi political parties on the other. It is
regrettable that restrictions imposed on the
Iranian Mojahedin, the by-product of the terror
tag the U.S. State Department has placed on the
group, prevent it from throwing its weight
behind this front. This designation has also
made the group vulnerable to Tehran’s terrorist
schemes in Iraq.
Independent Iraqi politicians openly appreciate
the positive role the Mojahedin can play in
strengthening Iraq’s nascent democratic process.
They are paying with their lives for such
conviction. For its part, Tehran has also
recognized this fact and has launched a vigorous
campaign to neutralize the Mojahedin and to
eliminate its Iraqi supporters. In Tehran’s
view, this anti-fundamentalist Iraqi-Iranian
partnership is the only viable bulwark against
its campaign in Iraq.
Iraqis get this. Tehran mullahs’ get it too.
Apparently, the Foggy Bottom is the only party
which does not.
(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 |