The Guardian: The West has left Iraq up for grabs to Iran

Britain's Guardian newspaper has attacked the West, particularly the United States and Britain, saying they have left Iraq up for grabs to Iran, which is now largely in control of the joints in Iraq, especially after most of the US troops left in 2011.

She added that the West showed indifference to the protests in Iraq, which calls for political reforms and fighting corruption and democracy, despite the killing of more than 250 people and injuring thousands of others.

Iran's determination to support Iraq's unpopular government does not bode well for democracy in the Middle East.

She added that although Iranian officials assert that they have no ambitions to restore the Persian Empire in the Middle East, and that unlike the United States is not an imperial power, it does not seem so for many observers.

In Lebanon, Iran has close financial and military links to Hezbollah, which was the focus of angry street protests last week.

It is also not easy to believe Iran is a friendly country working to help its neighbors, with its support for the Houthi insurgency in Yemen, where the death toll in four years of the war has reached 100,000.

The Revolutionary Guards control of the institutions of the Iranian state, and its close relationship with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and that the most prominent leaders of the Revolutionary Guards Brigadier General Qasem Soleimani, who leads the Quds Force; the hand of the guard outside Iran.

Soleimani in Baghdad
Soleimani's appearance in Baghdad last week was not unusual after mass demonstrations in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities demanded the overthrow of Adel Abdul-Mahdi's government, which credits Tehran for his access to the post.

The official Iranian explanation for Suleimani's visit to Baghdad was that Iraq's security was important to Iran. "Suleimani visits Iraq and other regional countries regularly, especially when our allies ask for help," said an Iranian official (who asked not to be named).

The paper said Suleimani was in fact bashing in the wake of threats by key Shi'ite leaders to abandon Abdul Mahdi.

Suleimani appeared to have succeeded in fixing some of the things, citing the decline in the resignation of Abdul Mahdi, which she saw as not promising, as two days after he intervened in Baghdad, the largest anti-government demonstration so far.

The ruling elite
This time, demonstrators demanded a radical elimination of Iraq's ruling elite, regardless of sectarian and ethnic loyalties, and an end to Iranian influence.

This challenge posed by the demonstrations is unprecedented in the post-Saddam Hussein era and not only poses a problem for Tehran, it is also an existential problem for Iraq's fragile three-party power-sharing system (Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds) created after the US invasion in 2003. 2003, as the newspaper sees.

The challenge comes after Iraq's leaders failed to provide basic necessities, such as clean water and electricity, and at a time when Iraq's youth lacked opportunities and jobs, and politicians, whether Sunni Arabs, Shiites or Kurds, are widely seen as Corrupt and incompetent.

Such continuing failures are hard to justify in a country that is OPEC's second-largest oil producer and has 12 percent of the world's oil reserves, although Iraq is still recovering from US occupation and fighting Islamic State.

The responsibility of the West
Although many in the United States and Britain believe that the page of Iraq has been turned around, this is not the case. Western countries that have acted cruelly and unlawfully to impose regime change on Iraq, and thus control and manage its affairs, have a continuing responsibility to help ensure its democratic integrity. And liberation from terrorism, and its economic and social viability.

This responsibility extends primarily to the Iraqi people, who are loudly demanding a new beginning, with some 250 people killed and thousands injured as protesters insist on the just democracy they promised in 2003.

The Guardian commented that such a massacre if it happened in Hong Kong or Barcelona would silence the ears, and wondered: Where is this claim of great interest from Iraq?