Exclusive: Iran intervenes to prevent ousting of Iraqi prime minister

REUTERS

BAGHDAD – Iran has stepped in to prevent the ouster of Iraqi Prime Minister Abdel Abdul Mahdi by two of Iraq’s most influential figures amid weeks of anti-government demonstrations, sources close to both men told Reuters.

Populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demanded this week that Abdul Mahdi call an early election to quell the biggest mass protests in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. The demonstrations are fueled by anger at corruption and widespread economic hardship.

Sadr had urged his main political rival Hadi al-Amiri, whose alliance of Iran-backed militias is the second-biggest political force in parliament, to help push out Abdul Mahdi.

 

But in a secret meeting in Baghdad on Wednesday, Qassem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force, intervened. Soleimani asked Amiri and his militia leaders to keep supporting Abdul Mahdi, according to five sources with knowledge of the meeting.

Spokesmen for Amiri and Sadr could not be reached for comment. An Iranian security official confirmed Soleimani was at Wednesday’s meeting, saying he was there to “give advice”.

“(Iraq’s) security is important for us and we have helped them in the past. The head of our Quds Force travels to Iraq and other regional countries regularly, particularly when our allies ask for our help,” the Iranian official said, asking not to be named.

Soleimani, whose Quds force coordinates Tehran-backed militias in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, is a frequent visitor to Iraq. However, his direct intervention is the latest sign of Iran’s increasing influence in Iraq and across the region.

Iraqi security officials told Reuters earlier this month that Iran-backed militias deployed snipers on Baghdad rooftops to try to help put down the protests.

If Iraq falls further into crisis, Iran risks losing the influence it has steadily been amassing in the country since the U.S.-led invasion and which it sees as a counter to American influence in the region.

FATE UNCLEAR

Despite the maneuvering behind closed doors, Abdul Mahdi’s fate remains unclear. He took office a year ago as a compromise candidate between Amiri and Sadr but faces a wave of protests that has swelled in recent days.

In the 16 years since the fall of Saddam, a Sunni Muslim, Shi’ite Iran has emerged as a key power broker in Iraqi politics, with greater influence than the United States in the Shi’ite majority country.

But that proxy power battle has rankled ordinary Iraqis who criticize a political elite they say is subservient to one or the other of Baghdad’s two allies and pays more attention to those alliances than to Iraqis’ basic economic needs.

Despite their country’s vast oil wealth, many Iraqis live in poverty or have limited access to clean water, electricity, basic health care and education. Most of the protesters are young people who above all want jobs.

The protests have broken nearly two years of relative stability in Iraq. They have spread from Baghdad across the mainly Shi’ite south and met with a security crackdown that killed over 250 people.

Until earlier this week, it appeared that Amiri – who is one of Tehran’s key allies in Iraq and the leader of the Badr Organization of militia – was willing to support Abdul Mahdi’s departure.

Late on Tuesday night, Amiri issued a public statement agreeing to “work together” with Sadr after the cleric called on him to help oust the prime minister.

Wednesday’s meeting seemingly changed the course of events.

A Shi’ite militia commander loyal to Amiri – one of the five sources Reuters spoke to about the meeting – said there was agreement that Abdul Mahdi needed to be given time to enact reforms to calm the streets.

Many of the militia leaders raised fears at the meeting that ousting Abdul Mahdi could weaken the Popular Mobilization Forces, according to another source familiar with the meeting.

The PMF is an umbrella of mostly Shi’ite paramilitary groups backed by Iran who are influential in Iraq’s parliament and have allies in government. They formally report to the prime minister but have their own command structure outside the military.

Following the meeting with Soleimani, Amiri changed tune with Sadr. He told Sadr that getting rid of Abdul Mahdi would cause more chaos and threaten stability, a politician close to Sadr said.

In response, Sadr said publicly that without a resignation there would be more bloodshed and that he would not work with Amiri again.

“I will never enter into alliances with you after today,” he said in a statement.

November 1, 2019 | 1 Comment »

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  1. Behind the lines: Revolt against Iran’s ‘system’ in Iraq and Lebanon
    Will the people succeed in undermining the Iranian plan to spread power across the region?
    By Jonathan Spyer

    The Middle East is currently witnessing the first examples of popular rebellion in countries dominated by Iran. In the very different contexts of Iraq and Lebanon, the protests now under way have a similar focus on political and economic corruption, mismanagement, and limited popular access to power and resources. In both cases, despite this focus, the demonstrators are being confronted with the fact of the domination of their country by an outside-imposed structure.

    In Iraq, demonstrations began on October 1. The protests took place in Baghdad, and rapidly spread to a number of cities in the southern part of the country, including Nasiriya, Diwaniya, Babil, Wasit, Muthanna, and Dhi Qar governorates. The immediate cause was the firing by Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi of a popular general, Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, from his post as deputy commander of the Counter-Terrorism Service

    Saadi’s firing, however, was from the outset redolent of broader issues. A Baghdad Shia himself, Saadi is known for his anti-sectarian positions and professionalism. The CTS, in which he served, is a force established and trained by the Americans. His removal from his position was thus widely interpreted as an effort by the Iran-linked Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) to rid itself of a potential rival.

    So while the focus of the demonstrations rapidly shifted to economic and social issues – in particular lack of access to affordable housing for young people – from the outset the issue of the unelected and unaccountable Iranian power that lies at the heart of governance in Iraq was implicitly present.

    One demonstrator, 28-year-old Moussa Rahmatallah of Baghdad, described this process in an interview published by the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis. “The problem was community and economic issues, but it got bigger now. Now, the main demand and call from the demonstrations is that they want the regime to fall.”

    This, of course, is the old slogan that echoed through the public squares of Arab states during the short-lived “Arab Spring” of 2010-11. But there is a significant difference. In Ben Ali’s Tunisia, Mubarak’s Egypt, Assad’s Syria and so on, it was clear what the regime was. Iraq, however, has a formal system of democracy, a parliament, regular elections. So what is the “regime” that Rahmatallah and his fellow demonstrators were referring to?

    One demonstrator expressed it in the following terms in a Facebook post: “Democracy alone while the country is being looted is not enough! What is the use of being able to participate in an election, while seeing militias intimidate the actual winners ’cause of threat of a civil war or whatever, and then allow them to have much greater control over the government?!”

    Iran and its allies appear similarly in no doubt that the “regime” in question (the Arabic word “nizam” also translates, perhaps more appropriately here, as “system”) is the one whereby within the structures of formal democracy, Tehran maintains its own independent political and military power structure, against whose decisions there is no appeal.

    That the Iranians are convinced in this regard may be gauged not by statements but, rather, by deeds. From the beginning, the armed power of the Shia militias has been mobilized alongside, and in cooperation with, the official security forces of the state, with the intention of brutally suppressing the demonstrations. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani flew into Iraq on October 2, to coordinate the operation, according to a report by The Associated Press.

    The result is that in just four weeks of demonstrations, over 250 demonstrators have lost their lives. An October 17 Reuters report detailed the process in which snipers belonging to Iran-backed militias were deployed on rooftops in areas where protests were taking place, with orders to shoot to kill. The operation, according to Reuters, was directed by one Abu Zeinab al-Lami, a senior official of the PMU closely linked to Iran. Iraqi security sources quoted by Reuters claimed that the snipers were “reporting directly to their commander [presumably Lami, or Soleimani] instead of to the commander in chief of the armed forces.”

    The precise chain of command, and the extent of collusion remain disputed. But the role of the IRGC-linked forces as the cutting edge of the attempt to crush the protests is clear.

    Remainder of article at https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Behind-the-lines-Revolt-against-Irans-system-in-Iraq-and-Lebanon-606497