IRAN-IRAQ: Tehran Gains Influence Despite Washington’s Manoeuvers

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Dilip Hiro

LONDON, Oct 13 1995 (IPS) - When Iraq holds its first presidential elections ever on Oct. 15, voters will see a single name on the ballot: Chairman of the Council and current president, Saddam Hussein.

The elections will mark a change from the practice of having the Revolutionary Command Council make the routine selection, as has been done since the Arab Renaissance (Ba’athist) Socialist Party came to power by military coup in 1968.

What is even more important is the context within which the polls – no matter how farcical – are taking place. The backdrop is formidable.

Continuing U.N. sanctions against Iraq have pauperised large sections of the population. There is virtually no central authority in the north, where Kurdish separatist groups have clashed since May 1994. And then, there is the growing importance of Iran.

Presently, Iraqi Kurds are under U.N. protection through Security Council resolution “Operation Provide Comfort”, which was passed in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War.

While the ongoing economic squeeze on Iraq and the autonomous status of Iraqi Kurdistan must please Washington — committed as it is to weakening Iraq — the Bill Clinton administration can only be dismayed by Iran’s increasing influence in the region.

The expansion of Iran’s role in Iraqi affairs means that Washington’s 1993 “dual containment” policy — aimed at subduing both Iraq and Iran — is not working.

Instead, the United States’ earlier “zero-sum” assessment of the region’s power relations — which holds that the enfeebling of Iraq means the strenthening of Iran — is resurfacing.

Meanwhile, in every arena where Baghdad is being pressured — economic, political and diplomatic — Tehran is making gains.

For instance, it is widely known that clandestine Iranian intermediaries are marketing Iraqi oil, dates and leather products abroad in violation of the U.N. sanctions. Iraq, in dire need of foreign currency, is believed to have offered co-conspirators large discounts on oil.

Iran has also acquired a high profile in Iraqi Kurdish affairs.

On Thursday, Iran successfully negotiated an armistice between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). After five days of talks in Tehran, the PUK and KDP announced that they had agreed to turn the regional capital Irbil, currently under PUK control, into a safe haven and reduce the overall size of their armies.

A month before, attempts by the U.S. State Department to conciliate the Iraqi Kurdish groups in Dublin ended in failure.

Unlike Washington, Tehran has several geopolitical and historical advantages in the regional power game, not the least of which is a half-century of experience in Iraqi Kurdish politics.

More recently, during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, Tehran secured the active cooperation first of the KDP and then of the PUK in its conflict with Baghdad.

Aided by them, Iran captured territory in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1983 and allowed the anti-Hussein coalition to set up a base there. The strategy enabled the KDP and PUK to control about a third of Iraqi Kurdistan, with the PUK entrenched in south-eastern Kurdistan bordering Iran, and the KDP in the north-western enclave bordering Turkey. The situation prevailed for five years.

Now, by re-emerging as the chief power-broker in Iraqi Kurdistan, Tehran has ensured an important role for itself in the future of Iraq.

As a predominantly Shia Muslim religious state, Iran has enjoyed much goodwill among the Shias of Iraq since its Islamic revolution in 1979. Comprising 70 per cent of Iraq’s Arab population, Shias are heavily concentrated in southern Iraq.

Overall, this gives Iran the kind of leverage possessed by none of the other regional powers — Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Among other things, this fact is likely to cool the fervour of those U.S. presidential aides who actively seek to topple Saddam Hussein.

Their opponents in the U.S. administration could argue — convincingly — that Hussein’s overthrow would pave the way for a pro-Iranian regime in Baghdad, a logical conclusion to be deduced from the “zero-sum equation” which the Clinton White House has been trying unsuccessfully to obliterate.

On top of this, news of Tehran’s recent strides on the Iraqi front came just as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) submitted a downbeat report on the six months of American economic sanctions against Iran.

Testifying before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a senior CIA official said that the U.S. embargo against Iran had proved ineffective, chiefly because the European Union (EU) and Japan had not followed Washington’s lead. In the absence of such a united front he forecast minimal damage to the Iranian economy.

Given these developments, there will be a voluble sigh of relief in the White House when, as expected, Hussein celebrates his electoral victory Sunday with a long, self-congratulatory speech on the national broadcast system.