Iran Recalibrates Its Strategy For Iraq
By Stratfor
Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani met for two hours Wednesday with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's foremost Shiite religious leader, in An Najaf, a holy city in southern Iraq. Earlier this month, Iranian Assembly of Experts Chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani led a 105-person delegation to Iraq, where he too met with al-Sistani, Iraq's three other grand ayatollahs, its president, prime minister and other politicians.
Larijani and Rafsanjani are two of Iran's most powerful political figures. Both are part of the pragmatic conservative camp and are bitter rivals of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is seeking re-election in June. Larijani and Rafsanjani both view Ahmadinejad as a reckless leader, and they often coordinate with each other and with their allies to cast him in a negative light. And though al-Sistani welcomed Larijani and Rafsanjani to An Najaf, STRATFOR is told that he refused to host Ahmadinejad, whose radical views apparently do not sit well with the influential ayatollah in Iraq.
The Iranian visits to An Najaf go far beyond the petty political rivalries of Tehran. Regardless of whether a hard-liner like Ahmadinejad or a reformist like Mir Hossein Mousavi wins the election in June, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will still be the primary figure calling the shots as he mediates between the rival factions. In fact, the national election Iran really has to worry about is the one taking place next door in Iraq come December.
Iran's primary goal is to consolidate Shiite influence in Iraq and use its foothold there for projecting Persian influence in the wider region. Iran's "Plan A" for making this happen was to carve out a federal Shiite zone in Iraq's oil-rich south. This would give Tehran a firmer grip on Iraq's Shiite political factions, while also creating a tie to revenues from the oil fields. The main vehicle for the plan was the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), an allied Iraqi faction led by Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, which has devoted significant resources to pushing the idea of an autonomous zone in the south among Shiite voters.
So far, Iran's Plan A has not progressed as hoped.
The ISCI took a beating in January's provincial elections, while the more independent Shiite parties that prefer to keep their distance from Iran, like Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Hizb al-Dawah, Muqtada al-Sadr's radical Shiite movement and the Fadhila Party, saw their popularity soar. In reviewing what went wrong, the ISCI recognized that its close affiliation with Iran, use of religious symbols in campaigning, false claims of al-Sistani's backing and the push for the creation of a Shiite federal zone in southern Iraq all cost the party support. Ultimately, most Iraqi Shia favored more autonomous candidates, like al-Maliki, who have refused to tether themselves to Tehran when they have other, overarching political, security and economic interests to look after.
Those election results were a setback for Tehran and a sign of trouble to come for Iran's ability to manage Iraqi Shiite politics. With the United States drawing down its military presence in Iraq and the Turks starting to get more involved in the Middle Eastern region, the time for Iran to consolidate its power in Iraq is now. The Iranians had known this would be no easy task, but they are realizing just how tough it will be now that the plan for an autonomous Shiite zone in Iraq seems unlikely to pan out soon. The best Iran can do between now and the Iraq's election in December is to shore up support among the various Iraqi Shiite parties, stick to its usual tactics of playing Shiite rivalries against each other and use its commercial, intelligence and religious links to diversify its support base.
To get rid of obstacles like al-Maliki, the Iranians have a contingency plan that would call on their political allies, along with select Kurdish and Sunni groups, to try to unseat the prime minister through a soft coup. (Of course, it would still take a good deal of political maneuvering to get a no-confidence vote passed in Parliament.) Just as importantly, the Iranians must win the support of the Shiite clerical establishment in Iraq if they want their political allies to fare better in December polls. This explains the recent visits by powerbrokers like Rafsanjani and Larijani to An Najaf.
Iraq's elections are still many months away, but the Iranians appear to be wasting no time in recalibrating their political strategy for Iraq. The fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 created an opening for Iranian expansion into the Arab world, but the United States -- backed by the Arab powers and the Turks -- remains the gatekeeper in Baghdad. Even as the United States winds down its war in Iraq, the Iranians will not be able to escape Washington's shadow in their efforts to influence policy in Iraq. That is not to say the Iranians haven't retained considerable influence to the west. But if Iran already is being forced to turn to Plan B, even as the United States is drawing down its military presence, any lingering ambitions to turn Iraq into an Iranian satellite are likely headed for disappointment.
