Interviewed by Abdul Hamid Qutb - Al-Jazeera Net
Tareq al-Hashemi, the former Iraqi vice-president, stressed that the ongoing escalation between the United States and Iran aims to deflect attention from the popular movement and weaken it, pointing out that Washington allowed Iran to tamper with the security, political and cultural conditions of Iraq. .
Hashemi stressed in an interview with Al Jazeera Net, that the unity of Iraq is targeted and is at stake, calling on the international community to drop the authority of "corrupt" parties.
He denounced the parliament’s neglect of representatives of the rest of the components, including Sunni Arabs and Kurds, before issuing a resolution demanding US forces to get out of Iraq, indicating that the real change in Iraq has not happened yet. The following is the text of the interview:
Simply changed interests, and accordingly, attitudes changed and understanding and engagement turned into a collision. The dispute over the nuclear agreement on the one hand, and pressure on Iran to respond and sit down to negotiate new conditions on the other hand, required restrictions on it in its vital security field in which it is expanding in neighboring countries, as long as economic sanctions did not fulfill its purpose, and this is why when Iran acquiesces and agrees to negotiate an agreement A new nuclear weapon, things will return to their former era.
In my opinion, what is more strained is the fact that Iran has gone beyond what is permitted, and in particular the use of Iraqi lands to attack American interests and its allies in the Persian Gulf and threaten Israel. Iran is allowed to extend its influence in Iraq, tamper with its security, political and cultural conditions and plunder its goods, but it is not allowed to turn into a country that becomes in the United States’s rogue state.
On the ground, Iraq and Syria have turned into a single theater of operations, where Israeli air strikes in Syria have begun on camps and facilities under the control of the Revolutionary Guards and its militias, and moved to Iraq by bombing many camps in the past weeks, whether they are inside Iraq or on the border with Syria. The bombing escalated until it reached its climax on January 3, following the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Hashd al-Shaabi, in a drone attack in Baghdad, and the subsequent lackluster Iranian response.
To say that the escalation is targeting the popular movement in Iraq is correct, but the accusation should be directed against Iran, which is - in my view - very embarrassing not only to the position of the uprising masses who announced their position on Iranian influence openly and boldly, but by burning the Iranian consulate in Karbala, in addition to calls Boycott Iranian products and more. It is clear that the escalation was intended to divert attention from the movement and weaken it by pitting the Shiite street against it and trying to target it and distort its image and intentions.
Indeed, the conflict between the United States and the Iranian regime is not non-existent or zero as happened with Saddam Hussein's regime, but rather it is limited and limited to specific ends, and this is why the conflict is being adapted within the framework of "action and reaction" in line with the limited conflict. Accordingly, there is no need for open warfare because it transcends the requirements of the conflict, and the two parties understand and adhere to this, and instead of clanking the weapons, the political discourse of threats and blackmail is only escalated.
A very important question, where is Iraq from this conflict, which has no camel or camel? Iraq is the first victim of it after it actually turned into a theater for settling the conflict in a new style of proxy wars. As a politician, I should not limit my interest in this conflict alone and ignore other important facts taking place on the ground. By this I mean the widespread popular movement, the position of the power parties and their armed militia arms. The movement, I can only express my feelings of concern about the future of Iraq because I see the country at the crossroads and the unity of Iraq targeted.
The justifications for the popular movement are the details of the unfortunate and sad scene that Iraq has become in various areas of life. The United Nations classifies Iraq as a failed state !! Although Iraq possesses unique characteristics that, if it had a sincere and qualified leadership, would be in the ranks of developed countries, but challenges related to the daily living of the citizen, such as losing a sense of security, diminishing job opportunities, denial of a decent living, a pill of medicine, an appropriate seat of education, and the absence of freedoms and rights guaranteed The constitution, and the citizen’s sense of the humiliating subordination to Iran, in addition to the spread of corruption and the chaos of carrying weapons, all of that sparked the recent intifada, which is by the way not the first. The first uprisings began on February 25, 2011, followed by a popular movement in the Sunni provinces in 2013, the last of which was the uprising of Che Rin.
Yes, the government was forced to resign, but it still exists, contrary to the constitution. The election law was partially amended, and the secretaries of the Independent Electoral Commission were changed. All of this was in response to the demands of the movement, but the real change has not taken place so far, and by that I mean the formation of an interim government of independents that supervises the review and amendment of the electoral law in preparation for early elections, after which a government capable of trying those whose hands are tainted by killing protesters and bringing the corrupt to justice and amending the constitution is elected.
And when was Iraq recovering from violence, terrorism and the fragility of individual and societal security, or from injustice, discrimination, corruption, and looting of public money, or from underdevelopment and failure? Add to that dependency and wasting Iraq! Aren't these the negative manifestations that characterized the situation in the country in light of the hegemony of corrupt parties? Is it not intimidation and deception to shirk responsibility and lay the blame for an uprising launched from the womb of real suffering that has not been more than a month old? The corrupt power parties have realized the dangers of the success of the intifada over their future, so they cling to all malicious and sordid means, including willful killing, extrajudicial executions, kidnappings and enforced disappearances, in addition to using black propaganda to defame and intimidate the goals of the noble intifada.
It is a one-sided invitation, and it should have included all invading and visible armies, in addition to countering all means and tools of influence. Iran's influence in my country is the most dangerous, and it is multi-colored and multicolored. I would not be exaggerating if I said that Qassem Soleimani was the de facto ruler of Iraq. The Iranian tampering affected everything in my country and left no room or facility.
On the other hand, I wonder how the parliament can risk issuing such a serious decision in the absence of national consensus on it ?! Why were the representatives of the rest of the components, Sunni Arabs and Kurds, ignored? Did the Shiite politicians mean to deliver a message to the Iraqi people that Iraq fell in our grip and from now on we monopolize the rule and we do not need partners? They have set a very dangerous historical precedent that will have something beyond.
The international community can do much, such as expediting the removal of the power of corrupt parties and enabling the expected change. It is sad that the international community, in particular the five permanent members of the Security Council, watches the death of more than 600 martyrs and 23 thousand wounded - including six thousand disabled persons and hundreds of kidnapped and forcibly disappeared - despite the peaceful demonstrations and protests. Nevertheless, these countries remain silent except from statements that they shyly release. Where are these countries from international humanitarian law?
We do not want them to mobilize armies as they did to topple the former regime. Rather, we want them to uncover the files of local and international corruption and terrorism in which senior corrupt politicians were involved, and we want them to condemn systematic killing and send a truth commission to investigate these crimes, and we want the Human Rights Commission to open an office It has a permanent place in Baghdad to monitor the violations and most of them, and we also want a fund to compensate the families of the martyrs and help the wounded with treatment outside the country, and to take care of the movement by inviting its representatives to meet the Secretary-General of the United Nations .. I believe that the movement urgently needs this and much more.
She can offer a lot, but she hesitates for fear of being accused of interfering, and we do not want her to intervene either. However, states do have their own ways of communicating with the movement and encouraging the authority to respond to the demands of the protesters, resolute cessation of their killing or the use of excessive violence against them, as well as encouraging relief organizations to be strongly active in this particular circumstance. It is in the interest of neighboring countries to avoid violence and keep the situation under control, because the alternative, like chaos and civil war, will spread to it and cast its catastrophic consequences on all.
Iranian influence from a country could only weaken it, undermine its stability and security, paralyze its economy, divide its people, and abandon its population. Iran's influence is condemned and it is rejected. There is a lot of evidence in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. The Iraqis do not want anyone to interfere in their affairs, whoever it was, not Iran, America, or others .. We want to be free in our Iraq and this is our right.
This is a noble invitation for Iran to abandon its approach, stop exporting ruin, chaos and terrorism, and instead spend its internal concerns and seek to improve the livelihood of the Iranian citizen. We are not enemies of the Iranian people at all. Rather, we are friends with the rule of neighbors and look forward to equal and friendly relations based on the exchange of interests and non-interference in internal affairs .
The solution is to restore the homeland from the grip of corrupt parties and liberate it from subordination, and to dedicate a civil state and work to a national identity instead of subsidiary identities, and this will not be achieved except by forcing the corrupt parties to give up power after Iraq went through difficult and serial throes of failed, painful, and expensive experiences over 17 years. . The time has come to say enough, for a youth team qualified to govern Iraq to come forward and take charge of the change itself. There is no doubt that this requires details and a road map to be agreed upon.
Thank you for this question, and in fact it is a question I have always received in this sense through social media. And I ask, did an Iraqi politician suffer as much as I do? Did he target another politician as much as he targeted? My three brothers were assassinated during the six months of 2006 by the sectarian killing squads of the corrupt parties, and the messages I received after each assassination incident "Leave the political process and leave Iraq."
Why am I, without other Hashemite politicians, a stalker and condemned to death and all my property in Iraq has been unlawfully confiscated and based on false gossip, and I have been deprived, until this moment, of an opportunity for fair litigation despite my acquittal by INTERPOL?
Was Al-Hashemi expected to be targeted if he had been on the path of others? The answer is no .. The evidence for that political party that has ruled since 2004 is still in power until now. The very tense relations over the years with Nuri al-Maliki, whom the movement accuses of being the most corrupt and the godfather of Iranian interference, are the reason for targeting me and what happened to me. Al-Maliki was the one who targeted Al-Hashemi after the historical lesson I gave him to the officials at the closed meeting on February 23, 2011, which he called for in order to permit him to deal with the movement at that time with iron and fire, and my speech supporting the movement and warning al-Maliki was a direct reason to accelerate my targeting.
In my archive, I was the only one who revealed the scandal about the Maliki prison scandal, and I have thousands of stands calling for justice, fairness, respect for human rights, and the prevention of injustice and discrimination. As for my rejection of Iranian influence, it is evident to everyone and everyone remembers my refusal to receive Hashemi Rafsanjani during his visit to Baghdad in 2009, and the statement in which I announced that I did not welcome him. Also, the details of my Qasim Soleimani interview in Tehran are published on my site and I extracted from him the historical recognition of Iran's blatant interference in the Iraqi file. As for my support for the civil state and the rule of law, it is reflected in the draft "National Contract", which is published on the websites.
My career has been a revolution on bitter reality, and it is not unlike that of the hungry, the deprived and the oppressed. However, I would like the movement to remain young, and I will continue to support and support him unconditionally, and through you I invite all honorable people not to fail in that support and support .. And victory is only from God.