The first serious round of aggravation of the situation in Iraq began on October 1, when thousands of Iraqis took to the streets condemning corruption and the inability of the government to provide basic services (water and electricity).
The initial socio-economic demands quickly grew into demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and his government. To make it clear to those far from Iraqi politics: Abdul-Mahdi, Shiite by religion, the creature of Tehran, the spiritual leader and the IRGC (Guardian Corps of the Islamic Revolution).
Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 under the pretext that they are developing chemical weapons and plunged them into chaos, Iran has also strengthened its influence, since the presence of Americans at the borders threatened its national security. And if immediately after the execution of Saddam Iraq was more under American influence, then 15 years later the country became more likely Iranian-American. A complex construction of the separation of powers was established after the American invasion (Kurdish president, Shiite prime minister and Sunni quotas plus ministerial portfolios), which allowed Iran to strengthen its secret influence and, starting with Maliki’s prime minister, to set its prime ministers.
It seems that after 16 years, the cycle opened by the fall of Saddam Hussein and the American invasion is coming to an end, and a big change awaits the country. An open question: what will they be?
The unrest that shook the country all month, killed about 400 people and left 12 thousand wounded. The second round, which began at the end of November, swept the southern provinces of Najaf, Nasiria, Karbala with fire, and thousands of protesters are blocking Tahrir, the central square of Baghdad, right now.
Significantly, the rebels set fire to the Iranian consulates, attacked the offices of the pro-Iranian security services and hit the most sensitive place for Tehran - the Iranian consulate in the holy city of Shiites Karbala.
When in 2017 I worked on Iran Today (close to the military and religious circles of Iranian authorities), the pilgrimage of millions of Iranian believers in Iraq’s Karbala was covered on such a scale and around the clock on all state television channels in the country, as, for example, in 1945 in the USSR would capture the Reichstag.
In that same Karbala, the Arabs killed one of the main holy Iranian Shiites, Imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad, who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the caliph Yazid. The battle of Karbala is considered to be the point of division of Islam into Sunnis and Shiites.
The return of Iran to the key place of Shiism - Iraqi Karbala and Iraq itself - meant the return of its former influence in the Middle East, the strengthening of the Shiite (Persian) arc. This was the result of long and painstaking work on the restoration of the Persian empire, which over the past 20 years has been carried out by the chief architect of Iranian foreign policy, General Kassem Suleimani. An important point in this concept is the throwing of Americans out of the region and the return of security and tranquility to Iranian friends and partners.
Synchronous mass unrest, taking place in an identical scenario and encompassing, apart from Iraq, Lebanon (another bridgehead of Iranian influence in the region), as well as the harshest anti-Iranian rhetoric left no doubt that the United States and Israel had made the most serious attempt in recent history to dismantle Iranian influence in region.
The uprisings were the same: radical youth burned tires, staged arson, chanted anti-Iranian slogans, smashed Iranian targets, and accused the pro-Iranian prime minister of corruption.
There is no doubt that in Iran, the indecision of the Iraqi authorities (the country was drenched in blood for a month, but the protest was not quenched) was received with fury and contempt. What protests are and what to do with them, Iran knows, perhaps better than anyone else in the world. In 2009, they suppressed one of the most massive uprisings during the existence of the Islamic republic - then about 3 million people came out to Azadi Square (Freedom Square) in Tehran, protesting against allegedly falsified presidential election results in favor of Ahmadinejad.
3 million people nearly demolished a regime that was then not ready for such a scale, and shots of bloody scenes of suppression of protests went around the world, bringing Iran severe Western sanctions and the support of the "green protest" the whole world.
The protests that shook Iraq in October and November nearly forced Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to resign.
He even publicly promised to do this, which caused some weakening of the protest wave - it seemed that the purpose of the uprisings was achieved. However, the resignation did not happen, since at that time the attention of the world suddenly switched to Iran itself, where violent protests against the government and corruption began, covering almost 90 cities of the country.
The world media switched from Iraq to Iran - finally, the Iranians, inspired by the example of their neighbors, decided to overthrow the regime! Iraq will wait when the people sweep away the Ayatollah regime!
And then an interesting thing happened: in 24 hours, the Iranian authorities completely disconnected the entire country from the Internet, for the first time in the world realizing a technically perfect blackout of the world's network in the country. Total blocking of the Internet quickly stopped the protest movement, as it was deprived of the possibility of coordination through instant messengers Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram. The West has not seen what is happening in Iran - and the West has nothing to present to Iran.
It is possible that the sudden Iranian protests were organized by the authorities themselves to run through the successful protest suppression scheme that Iran showed to allies in the region, including Iraq: give us the opportunity to do the dirty work if you can’t do it yourself.
Of course, Iraq cannot afford what Iran can afford. But local Internet outages have already begun - for example, in Nasiriya, where brutal suppression of protests is taking place. Nine Iraqi broadcasters were given broadcast licenses. However, there is still a five thousandth group of American troops in Iraq, and nobody wants to be in the "Iranian loop" of Western sanctions. Iran is not primarily interested in this: Iraq is its main international market and allows exporting its products bypassing Western sanctions. Through Iraq lies the path of Iran to Syria, Lebanon and access to the Mediterranean Sea.
But it is clear that for Iran, the battle for Iraq will not be for life, but for death. Actually, this is already happening.
The representative of the Iraqi People’s Mobilization Force (pro-Iranian security forces that succeeded in last year’s election), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, said that all his brigades were under the command of Ayatollah Sistani: “And we will cut off the hand of anyone who tries to approach Mr. Sistani.”
Turning to the figure of Sistani, an authoritative clergyman, to whom all the politicians of the region are lined up with a bent back, and the French magazine Le Point calls him “the invisible master of Iraq,” the security forces legitimize a future harsh response to protests.
“If a country enters a civil war, not a single square inch of Iraq will be spared, and the first who will be destroyed by fire is an American enemy,” warned one of the most radical pro-Iranian groups, Kataib Hezbollah, The Wall Street quotes these words Journal.
On November 27, unknown rebels set fire to the Iranian consulate in Najaf. The consulate burned down almost to the delight of the photojournalists of world agencies, rioters blocked the passage of fire engines. 47 of the attackers were injured. Attacks on Iranian diplomatic facilities show Iran an injured party, forced to defend its interests, not the aggressor.
A remarkable detail: the consulate was empty at the time of the arson - all Iranian employees were evacuated in advance, and the representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Mousavi, immediately called on the Iraqi authorities to "effectively and decisively repulse the criminals." Perhaps, while the West was distracted by protests in Iran, the second stage of the battle for Iraq was intercepted by the Iranians themselves and could develop according to their scenario.
Not just because the Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi announced a reform of the Constitution of the country, which will happen for the first time since 2005. Its details are not yet clear, but, as the pro-Iranian prime minister said, it could lead to a change in the political system of the country. For consideration of the amendments by a special commission of 18 representatives of ethnic and religious groups allotted no more than four months. And another two months - to hold a referendum.
This means that Iraq expects another six months of bloody upheaval. Unless, of course, one of the parties to the conflict accelerates the development of events.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.