Revolutionary events took place in Iraq, since 2003, which was in the most severe gap between Washington and Tehran and actually turned into a failed state.
On Friday in Baghdad, there was a massive arrest of the pro-Iranian Shiite militia group Kataib Hezbollah for rocket attacks against the Americans.
14 people, including one foreigner (probably an Iranian citizen), were arrested at Hezbollah headquarters in southern Baghdad on a dawn morning. The arrest was carried out by the elite special forces of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CCC) of Iraq. And the pro-Iranian forces still cannot get them out of prison, despite numerous street protests and the blocking of pickups of the "green zone". The Iraqi Ministry of Internal Affairs and the country's security services have created a special committee to investigate the activities of these brigades in Iraq.
This happened for the first time in the history of post-Saddam Iraq. A new round of battle for Iraq between key players has begun.
Let me remind you that in Iraq there are about a dozen bases of the American coalition and thousands of members of pro-Iranian groups (Hezbollah, units of the Popular Mobilization Force, in fact, Al-Quds bureaux in the Middle East). The latter regularly launched rocket attacks on Americans. So, AFP writes that since October 2019, pro-Iranian groups launched 33 attacks on coalition forces and American diplomats.
- Reuters
- © Thaier al-Sudani
Since October 2019, a government crisis has begun in Iraq: riots demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, who was approved by the IRGC and General Kassem Suleimani as prime minister. Abdul Mahdi was taking his time as best he could and, taking advantage of the liquidation of Suleymani and his Iraqi partner Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (People’s Mobilization Force) on January 3, 2020, initiated a vote in parliament for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq (and managed to do so, the legislative act was accepted).
Before the Mahdi, which contributed to the political crisis in Iraq in favor of Iran, there were other premieres and politicians approved in Tehran. And none of them dared to order the arrest of pro-Iranian police or members of Hezbollah’s cells, which today has an extensive network of headquarters in Iraq. The maximum that the former governments were capable of was to chide the attackers on American missions and declare that they could not find them.
The fact that all Iraqi politicians were appointed and approved by Tehran after the fall of Saddam is also described by Dexter Filkis' huge essay in The New Yorker. The leaders of the two main Kurdish parties, Masood Barzani and Jalal Talabani, explain why they cannot say no to Suleimani: “When we say no, it creates problems for us. Explosions. Executions. Iranians are our neighbors. They always are and always will be. We must deal with them. ”
This method has proven effective for the Iraqi political public. What is even worth the reaction to the arrest of former Iraqi Prime Minister and today's leader of the State Law Enforcement Coalition Nuri al-Maliki, who "condemned" the attack on members of the Popular Mobilization Force coalition, calling for restraint and respect, and offered his mediation services in the release arrested.
“An attack on members of the People’s Mobilization Force coalition will have tremendous consequences for the country's internal stability,” Nasr al-Shimmari, deputy secretary general of yet another pro-Iranian Harakat An-Nujaba group, said menacingly.
The tectonic fault in the existing US-Iranian status quo in Iraq occurred after the new Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazimi, the former head of Iraqi intelligence, came to power. It is believed that Kazimi is a pro-American figure. But not so simple.
French magazine Le Point calls him a secret agent with long arms. He believes that Kazimi, who has led Iraqi intelligence since 2016, is an experienced negotiator who will use his networks in Washington and Tehran to save Iraq from a political and economic cataclysm.
A few words about the new Prime Minister of Iraq to understand the future vector of changes in a strategically important point in the Middle East.
Mustafa al-Kazimi was born in Baghdad in 1967 and graduated from the Law Faculty of Iraqi University. He was the first journalist who, due to his active work against Saddam Hussein, went to political emigration to Europe (to Germany, and then to the UK, worked for the American newspaper Al Monitor, for seven years he headed the Iraq Memory Foundation in London).
From his biography it is clear that he is a compromise figure for the United States, but still the roots of his political and intelligence career are in the UK, which may have lobbied for his appointment as prime minister in May 2020 after the literally apocalyptic political crisis that erupted in Iraq in October 2019 and continuing to this day.
The special operation at the Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020 could hardly have passed without his participation, since at that time he was the head of the country's intelligence.
How tough will his opposition to pro-Iranian forces be, it will become clear in the near future on the development of events with 14 arrested members of the Kataib Hezbollah group. Today, there are two forecasts in Iraq in connection with this: the first - the arrested will soon be released, the second - the death penalty is threatened with arrest for the terrorist attacks.
The second option, of course, will raise a blast wave in Iraq, and we must be prepared for a real war with Iran, for which Iraq has been and remains a strategically important outpost, like Syria.
AFP cites the characteristics of those who know Kazimi personally (the main one is the “cunning outstanding negotiator”) and argues that he managed to form an “unprecedented consensus among the Shiites” and “gracious relations with Tehran”.
“He is an outstanding negotiator and a cunning player, and he has no right to make a mistake,” said Toby Dodge, director of research for the Middle East at the London School of Economics.
Therefore, it is possible that Kazimi made the first ever arrest of members of Hezbollah, the ruling ball already in Iraq, to demonstrate to the Americans its rigidity and ability to "resolve issues seriously." “The coalition led by Washington is very pleased with this raid,” said Iraqi political analyst Hisham al-Hashemi. And Kazimi is preparing for a trip to Washington (there, by the way, they did not even talk to the former prime minister al-Mahdi, whom the IRGC and Suleimani tried to portray as an independent political figure).
An important nuance: on June 11, a “strategic dialogue” was launched between Baghdad and Washington on the fate of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq (after the assassination of Suleymani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Iraqi parliament decided that the United States should withdraw its troops within six months).
It is possible that Kazimi will persuade Iran to show loyalty and hold on to the swirling crowds of Hezbollah supporters in order to resolve with the United States the question of withdrawing troops from Iraq (Suleimani’s strategic and ultimate goal). Despite some image losses, Iran can compromise in order to achieve its main goal. Or he will have to start a full-scale bloody war in a strategy of chaos with the participation of all pro-Iranian forces in Iraq.
At least, Deputy Suleimani, now Ismail Qaani, the head of Al-Quds, urgently moved out of Iran to "resolve the issue." The Iranian news agency Tasnim reported yesterday that it had traveled to Syria, in the Abu Kamal region (on the border with Iraq), and immediately deleted the message: Gaani was not Suleimani to defiantly tease geese and hold meetings with pro-Iranian groups in the "green zone" Baghdad in the chair of the Iraqi prime minister, as the American media wrote about this in the summer of 2019.
To save Iraq from collapse, together with Kazimi, it should be its Minister of Finance Ali Allawi, a 73-year-old economist who predicted a chance for Iraq to recover in one year (subject to urgent reforms) or the demise of statehood.
Allawi considers the situation catastrophic not only because the price of oil has collapsed. He cites the example of 2005-2006, when he was already responsible for finances in the interim authorities: the price per barrel was about $ 35, but the number of government employees was less than a million. Today, more than four million Iraqis receive pensions and other government payments and benefits worth about € 4 billion a month.
Various "people's governments" led by the very pro-Iranian politicians devastated the Iraqi state treasury. “The government usually has enough money to cover a couple of months of emergencies. I expected to find in the budget from $ 7.5 billion to $ 10 billion, but there was only $ 1.5 billion there, ”he said. Allavi will have to re-lend to state-owned banks in order to pay off debts to state employees.
And this despite the fact that Iraq is the second producer in OPEC! To save Iraq, 40 million people will have to be subjected to austerity, and this may last up to two years, ”Allawi said sadly in an interview with France Press. One of the first tasks of the new government is to remove “aliens” from the budget lists. This slang word in Iraq is an analogue of our “dead souls” (civil servants who received salaries from the state budget, but never went to work). Posts and the bloated staff of "state employees", about which below.
The most cynical thing is that the riots against the new government provoked the same forces that are fueling anti-American sentiments: people from the bottom are being taken out on the street, wishing to receive benefits and salaries, being fictitious workers, because oil belongs to the people. The Iraqi nourished elite rebels because it is deprived of the usual schemes of theft. Iraqi corruption has devoured € 410 billion since 2003.
A strong Iraq with a pro-Western politician is a threat to Tehran, while a weak Iraq torn by political contradictions, on the contrary, is a good buffer zone for security for Iran. But without Western money, Iraq will cease to exist as a state in the coming year. This is the dilemma.
One of Hezbollah’s Iraqi representatives, Abu Ali al-Askari, reacted to the arrest of 14 members of the group as follows: “Monster Kazimi wanted to hide that he was involved in the murder of two martyrs and make a new offer to American sponsors. Well, we are ready! ” Familiar stylistic techniques in the conduct of business: “blood”, “martyrs” and an attempt to arouse fear and horror in the interlocutor.
The Iraqi army recently commented on this in the same style. But about the arrest of 14 people from Hezbollah, she remained deadly silent until dinner the next day. Later, a message appeared that “armed groups on state-owned vehicles” approached the “counterterrorism headquarters”. It was added that "these groups do not want to be part of the Iraqi state." Public sector employees, in general, but not quite.
This, of course, was about the “Forces of Popular Mobilization” (Al-Hashd al-Shaabi) - a coalition of pro-Iranian militias integrated into the regular security forces. But it was a completely new vocabulary.
Whether Kazimi will save Iraq by delicately and dangerously balancing between Washington and Tehran, or whether he will go to a serious war with pro-Iranian militia, resorting to the help of the coalition and the United States, will be shown in the near future. Let's not forget about the big European game: on June 27, 2020, the EU rejected a request by a group of American senators for recognizing Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
The East is a delicate matter, and the fate of Iraq is in the hands of external third-party players.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.