The United States should pressure al-Maliki to respect international appeals based on international law and accept solutions based on those laws. This is a first test to be passed by al-Maliki to prove he has not given the mullahs ruling Iran a blank check to spend in Iraq.
President Barack Obama heaped praise on visiting Iraqi Premier Ministre Nuri Kamal al-Maliki yesterday during their formal meeting at the White House.
Iraq can be a model for others who are aspiring to build democracy, according to Mr. Obama, who said this justified the American expenditure of "blood and treasure" in that country, "a beacon of democracy in the Arab world that the people throughout the region will soon see as a country determining its own destiny".
At the brink of a week-long ceremony for quitting Iraq, the president could not have said less. At the end, it is an excellent feeling for soldiers coming back home and their families to put an end to a long mission in dangerous a country as Iraq.
Other than differences over the line to adopt towards Syria, no other disagreements were mentioned. But as usual in such meetings, the most important parts are those kept silent. At the same time the official meeting was going on in the White House, several thousand Iranian-Americans were demonstrating in front of the residence to protest Iraq's oppressive measures against Iranian dissidents belonging to the main opposition to the muallahs' regime, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) and living in camp Ashraf in Iraq.
Mr. al-Maliki calles MEK members "terrorists", who should be expelled from Iraq under Iraqi constitution's implications against "terrorism". However he confessed, in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, that it is on Iran's demand, and not out of constitutional principles, that he has set a deadline (December 31) to dismantle the camp. He says: "We have an outstanding problem with the Iranians and it's the issue of the presence of the Mujahedin-e Khalq and those people are a source of annoyance for them. This, too, is in the process of being resolved and it will end."
The problem with the Iranian regime does not stop there. In fact, in spite of having finished second in the last legislative elections, Mr. al-Maliki gained his PM seat by Iran’s backing, through the latter's forcing conflicting Shiite parties loyal to it to support him. The Iranians were keen to ask him for immediate repay, when during his first visit to Iran after acquiring control over military facilities in Iraq following SOFA act of 2009 the supreme leader of the country asked him to honor his word to dismantle camp Ashraf, home to some 3400 Iranian dissidents belonging to the main opposition Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK). He complied, in July 2009, when his forces attacked the camp and killed 11 residents and imprisoned 36, before being stopped short of their goal under international pressure. Then he repeated the attack, albeit on a larger scale, in April 2011, again leaving 35 killed and hundreds wounded among the unarmed residents.
But Human Rights related shortcomings do not end with Iranian opposition members. The very same day Mr. al-Maliki was visiting president Obama in the Whithe House, hundreds of Iraqis were rounded up back home under the pretext of being former Baath Party members. That adds to the arrest, back in October and November, of 600 former Baathists.
The reality known to all but seldom mentioned as it should, is that the United States is leaving a country, albeit through a week of triumphant ceremonies, to increasing influence by neighboring Iran. The spread of Iranian presence in all aspects of the country's life, especially so in security matters, is unbelievable. Several strongmen around the PM himself are paid agents working with the Iranian regime. One of them, Hadi Farhan al-Amiri, accompanies Mr. Maliki on his US visit as Transport Minister. He has been involved, during more than two decades, in hundreds of terrorist operations in Iraq, not against the former regime, but against those opposing Iran. He has married an Iranian who lives, along with his children, in Iran. He has a residence in the Mofateh compound in Tehran, a housing compound devoted to commanders of the Qods force and the Ramadhan garrison belonging to the Pasdaran Army. According to documents obtained from inside the Pasdaran Army by the Iranian Resistance, Hadi al-Ameri receives a monthly pay of around 260.000 Toumans, the equivalent of that of a brigadier general in the Pasdaran Army, under the salary code 3829597 and maintains an account number 3014 to this end.
Even in matters of foreign and regional policy, Mr. al-Maliki follows in the footsteps of Iran. His position on Syria, as virtually the sole Arab country supporting Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator that has ordered not less than 4000 people killed since the uprising against his power began in the country, has no other justification than being on orders received from Tehran. Being abandoned by the Arab League as well as the international community, the Syrian regime holds on to power on vast aid sent from Tehran. Iran's mullahs clearly plan a strategic axis containing Iran, Iraq and Syria, which can play a vital role in destabilizing a region already in chaos after the Arab spring.
There are however, people who see Nuri al-Maliki as a self styled, nationalistic figure and not "a puppet of Iran." They say what he does is the result of walking a tight rope in chaotic Iraqi politics in able to survive.
It is as important for the future of the region as the future of American-Iraqi relations to understand his real intentions and where he stands. A viable test of this would be his attitude towards campAshraf, as stated earlier. As the issue has become so sensitive a case as it comes to Iran's position and the international community's attention, the outcome is significant in revealing the true position of the current Iraqi government. The European Union, the UN High Commissionaire for Refugees, the US congress and most international organizations including Amnesty International have asked for the December 31 deadline to close the camp to be postponed, giving the UNHCR adequate time to find the residents refuge in other countries. Iran on the other hand is pressuring Iraq to relocate those residents to remote areas in Iraq in order to destabilize their safety and render them prone to deadly attacks by Iraqi proxies of the mullahs.
The United States should pressure al-Maliki to respect international appeals based on international law and accept solutions based on those laws. This is a first test to be passed by al-Maliki to prove he has not given the mullahs ruling Iran a blank check to spend in Iraq.
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