LOSING IRAQ — to Iran

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Baghdad’s new cabinet

“They deserved to be killed!” exclaimed the ex–Counter Terrorism Services (CTS) operative, referring to the Tishreen protestors, as we sped across Tahrir Square passing the desolate high-rise shell of the former Turkish restaurant building. This had been seized by the protestors as their castle stronghold until their numbers fell dead like flies. They had called it the Castle of the Liberators. It no longer is.

Now it sits forlorn, gashed with bullet holes, inscribed with graffiti and its empty floors patrolled by state-paid gunmen. A poster of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani was positioned at the ground level entrance.

The building had suffered a similar ill fate during the Gulf War after being bombed by the Americans and left abandoned because of the toxic weapons they used. Barriers now enclose the rear of the famous monument in Tahrir square denying the ideal of liberation after which it was named.

“We were paid $5000 a month to carry out black operations and kill people – and not just ISIS,” the ex-trigger man went on. “I told them, no, not any more. I can’t do any more bad things.” Targets were traced by their mobile phones and then annihilated. The Americans had trained people like him in the CTS.

When their military operations formally ended in December 2021, [1] a little ceremony was staged with Lieutenant General Abdul Amir al-Sammarai, deputy head of the Joint Operations Command, freshly appointed as Interior Minister in al-Sudani-s October 2022 cabinet. The Americans have not of course abandoned their “Embassy” stronghold – an intelligence and military hive superior to any bunker built by the executed ex-President. An American force of 2,500 troops remain. The Americans have, however, lost Iraq to Iran. The Shia fundamentalist exiles that swarmed back from Iran gained Iraq and now so too have the Iran-backed militias.

The 2021 early elections were held in vain

When Mohammed Shiya (Shia) Sabbar al-Sudani was appointed Prime Minister by the PUK’s Abdul Latif Rashid on October 13, taking office on October 28, the reasons for holding early elections a year before were usurped.

The mass protests against al-Sudani’s suitability for the post have been ignored by his very appointment. [2] Al Sudani, a veteran Al Da’wa politician and one of Nouri al-Maliki’s men is one of the “old faces” that anti-corruption protestors had condemned as part of the sorry cast of “Ali Baba’s” possie.

Tales of corruption and impunity have long dominated al-Maliki’s periods in government. His son, Ahmed, (nicknamed “Hamoudi” on the Iraqi street) benefitted from his father’s power profiting from real estate while based in the Green Zone. He was appointed to work out of the Iraqi Embassy in Washington as a “business consultant” and reportedly thrives on a playboy lifestyle.

He was also al-Maliki’s security chief and ran a maximum-security prison while amassing billions through immersing his hands in the Iraqi media, construction as well as military dealings [3]. Ahmed al-Maliki was arrested in Beirut in 2014 with US 1.5 billion in cash. [4] Several others very close to al-Maliki had their assets frozen in 2020 under al-Kadhimi’s interim premiership. [5]

No one knows what the new premier al-Sudani is worth today as he has never disclosed it publicly, but he is believed to be a billionaire. The government budget for 2023 is said to be between $120-$130 billion and the largest ever in Iraq’s history.

The year-long wrangling to take control of the most lucrative and influential ministries is now complete. Militias, mafias, sheikhs and tribes will almost certainly continue to compete to secure fortunes as they have done since regime change almost twenty years ago. The Iraqi people have been the losers.

Although the US State Department designated Iran’s proxy militia, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH – League of the Righteous) as a terrorist organization, al- Sudani has given it the portfolio for Higher Education and Scientific Research.6 The lucrative education sector in Iraq and in Kurdistan is deeply corrupt. Jund al-Imam (Army of the Imam) militia leader, Hashd militia spokesman, Saber al-Asadi, has been accorded al-Sudani’s old post of Labour and Social Affairs Minister. (Further details follow a little later on in this article).

Mohammed Saleh al-Iraqi, an aide to rival Moqtada al-Sadr tweeted “We stress our absolute, clear and firm refusal for any of our affiliates to participate in the government headed by al-Sudani…” [7]

For now, the Sadrists bide their time, but it is now too late to turn back the clock. Al Sadr’s bluffs abysmally failed. The Coordination Framework, the real election losers, seized the day. As Al Monitor opined, “The only thing that brought the Coordination Framework together and united them is their conflict with Sadr. Without it, their sharp differences would cause them to quickly break up.” [8]

Who is Mohammed al-Sudani?

Mohammed al–Sudani was an al-Dawa stalwart like his father, Shiya Sabbar al-Sudani, who had supported Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iran-Iraq war leading to his execution by the Ba’ath government in 1980 as a traitor to Iraq.

He had been an employee in the Agricultural Bank before al Da’wa coloured his vision and saw him pay for it with his life. His son, Mohammed, despite the family’s southern Shi’a roots, was educated in Baghdad, enjoying a successful career under the Ba’ath administration as an engineering graduate from Baghdad University.

During the six years leading up to the US invasion from 1997-2003, he worked in the Agriculture Directorate of Maysan Governorate becoming head of the Kumait District Agriculture Division, the Ali Al Sharqi District, and the Plant Production Department. His career prospered under the Ba’ath government despite his having reportedly taken part in the 1991 Shi’a uprising in southern Iraq.

His grandfather was Sheikh Sabbar Hatem Al-Sihoud, a prominent sheikh from Maysan governorate where Mohammed would himself go on to become governor between 2009-2010, after a stint as mayor of Amarah city in 2004 – the year after regime change. Mohammed al-Sudani, had also been the engineer supervising the Iraqi National Research Program with the United Nations FAO before the invasion. After that he became a Coordinator between the CPA and the authority supervising Maysan Governorate in 2003. [9] He went on to enjoy various posts in both Nouri al-Maliki and Haidar al-Abadi’s governments – both al-Da’wa activists like his late father.

During 2011, al-Sudani briefly became Chairman of the Justice and Accountability Commission for De-Ba’athification  barring contenders from standing for election on alleged former Ba’ath links.10 Arab News noted in this regard, “As chairman of the commission for de-Baathification, Al-Sudani assisted Al-Maliki in purging hundreds of Sunnis and political rivals from administrative roles. The Iraqi Commission of Integrity estimated that $500 billion was corruptly siphoned off from the Iraqi budget during Al-Maliki’s tenure, much of which went toward funding paramilitary violence…” [11]

Al Sudani was next appointed Minister of Human Rights by al-Maliki after the 2010 elections – a post he held until 2014 during a time when no human rights were protected. When he was in post as Human Rights Minister, Iran’s Tasnin news agency reported how the late IRGC-QF leader, Qasem Soleimani helped Baghdad retake Tikrit from ISIS in 2015 sending in Iranian military personnel and weaponry. [12]

Nouri al-Maliki also called upon Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanese Hezbollah’s chief, at the time who sent in some of his most experienced people. [13] They would support their sister groups in place like Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and firmly establish the Shi’a militias in the power structure akin to the role played by the Basij in Iran.14 He became Minister of Labour and Social affairs from 2014 to 2018.[15]

Al-Sudani and the Tishreen Protests

In 2019 at the time of the protests, Mohammed al-Sudani enjoyed the support of IRGC-QF leader, Qasem Soleimani, who strongly backed him as candidate for prime minister in 2019 when Adel Abdul-Mahdi looked likely to fall. Soleimani had arrived in Baghdad in October after popular protests suddenly overwhelmed the capital.

The next day, clashes between the unarmed demonstrators and security forces grew more violent. The death toll soared as unidentified snipers shot protestors aiming for the head and chest, killing 150 people in less than a week.16 The total would rise to more than 600 dead and 20,000 wounded. [17]

Soleimani had taken a helicopter into the Green Zone to meet Iraqi security officials after the protests intensified, chairing the meeting in place of Abdul-Mahdi saying, “We in Iran know how to deal with protests…This happened in Iran, and we got it under control.” [18] The same methods of dealing with protestors are on display currently across Iran as the demonstrations there continue following the death of an Iranian Kurdish woman, Jina Mahsa Amini, in September [19] over hijab rules. Some 318 protestors have so far been killed by Iranian security forces. (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blames outside forces as is usual in his rhetoric). [20]

In December 2019, The Organizing Committee of the October Revolution had issued a statement saying that Iranian military forces had entered Iraq on Saturday at 4am through the Zabatia border crossing in Wasit Province. IRGC armored vehicles arrived in Iraq at 3 pm. The Committee called it “an occupation by the Iranian regime in full cooperation with the Iraqi government, Parliament and paramilitary forces.”

Soleimani had returned to Baghdad again when PM Adel Abdul-Mahdi was forced to resign because of the strength of feeling in relation to the protestors’ demands coupled with the high death toll in expressing them. [21] His final return to Baghdad on January 3, 2020, was to be his fatal final journey. “The Trump administration’s justification for the killing of Soleimani and Muhandis noted that the strike was “in response to an escalating series of attacks” by Iran’s proxies in Iraq that were supported by the IRGC. [22]

The late Hisham al-Hashemi, a security analyst on the militias, including ISIS and former advisor to PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi, was assassinated on July 6, 2020 by Kata’ib Hezbollah for his views, [23] had written at the time, “Iran is afraid of these demonstrations because it has made the most gains in the government and parliament through parties close to it” since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003...Iran does not want to lose these gains. So it has tried to work through its parties to contain the protests in a very Iranian way.” [24]

Soleimani had sought to push the various blocs into keeping al-Sudani as chief candidate for the premiership and his confederates in the pro-Iran Coordination Framework stood by his choice. Two years after Soleimani’s assassination he got his way but the protestors did not.

Mohammed al-Sudani had stood down from al-Da’wa in 2020 as allegations against al-Maliki gathered steam, enabling him to stand as in independent candidate in the October 2020 elections, openly rebuking the Tishreen street’s 2019 opposition to him.

He set up the fledgling Euphrates Movement Party – a reference to southern Iraq – but gained only a single seat. This seat became three seats after al-Sadr quit taking 73 MPs out of the parliamentary process with him, thereby leaving the field open to the machinations of the pro-Iran Coordination Framework. If al-Sadr had counted on the KDP staying loyal and following him out the door he hadn’t correctly gauged their political character. The KDP and PUK have both been heedless of anyone else (and each other) ever since the 1975 Algiers Agreement signed between Iraq and Iran decimated the Kurdish rebellion. [25]

PM al-Sudani’s first actions contradict his cabinet’s stated programme

The new government’s ambitious programme when examined reads like little other than an indictment of the failures and crimes of its predecessors – cabinets in which he played a role. Kirkuk Now reported, “In the Government program, five issues are at the top of the agenda: fighting corruption, unemployment, supporting the poor, reforming various sectors and improving services.

The program is divided into three parts, the main part consists of 23 issues. They include details of plans on Internally Displaced Persons IDP, minorities, areas liberated from ISIS, reconstruction, stability and security, human rights and women, freedom of expression and demonstration, service sectors and resolution of outstanding issues. [26] The status of Kirkuk is part of that programme.

The full programme is a showpiece if ever there was one. In contrast with the spirit of it, AAH (Sadiquon bloc) – ideologically supported by Kata’ib Hezbollah – is intent on pursuing just replaced PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi sending a threatening letter to the parliamentary speaker, al-Halbousi, demanding that the Integrity Commission obtains a court order to block al-Kadhimi and his ministers from leaving the country and to seize their assets. This move comes in retaliation for the stand al-Kadhimi tried to take against their killings and acting with impunity and, particularly, after al-Hashemi’s callous killing. [27]

Who is In and who is Out?

On October 27, Emtidad Movement MP, a new party born of the protest movement led by Alaa al-Rikabi28, publicized how he and his colleague, Falah al-Khazali, were physically assaulted by MPs from the CF with their guards. Rikabi said his assailants threatened to kill him. [29] “A video circulated on social media showed him speaking frantically from a darkened room, telling how he had just been beaten up during the session and taken to a room (by al-Sudani’s security men) inside the parliament building.” They have threatened to kill us, the security forces have put us in a room to protect us. Let the people know that we have been subjected to violence inside the parliament. Our lives are in danger, we want the Iraqi people to know.” Both said they were attacked because of their refusal to vote for the new Cabinet. [30]

On October 28, 2022 key positions in the new cabinet were announced including:

Foreign Minister Dr. Fouad Hussein (KDP) – former Finance Minister under Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Foreign Minister under al-Kadhimi. [31]

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Oil, Basra-born, Hayan Abdul Ghani, having an impressive forty-year career in Iraqi oil and gas.

Labour and Social Affairs Minister, Saber Al-Asadi, former spokesman for the PMF and head of the Jund al–Imam militia was given the post of Labour and Social Affairs Minister. His past history merits close scrutiny when considering the contribution he is likely to make to the new order on behalf of Iran and the Hashd.

Hiyam Kazem, from al-Maliki’s bloc, was given the lucrative Telecommunications Ministry.

Minister of Justice, Dr. Khalid Salam Saeed Shawani, a Kurdish law graduate in government since 2006.

Minister of Health, Dr. Saleh Mahdi Mutalib

Minister of Defense,Thabet Muhammad Saeed al-Absi

Minister of Finance,Taif Sami [32]

Closely linked with the Iran-backed militias, Moayad al-Saidi, was appointed as al-Sudani’s office director. Al Saidi is a senior official in the PMF’s media organisation.

Rabia Nadir, a journalist with Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH)’s al-Ahad TV, was appointed Director of al-Sudani’s press office.

Mohammed Al-Sudani already had his own list of officials that he was ready to sack and their vacated posts to be filled with people serving Iran and the Coordination Framework’s agenda. According to the ISHM EPIC’s bulletin, on his second day in office, al-Sudani wasted no time in meeting with the Ambassadors of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.

True to form, the US simply congratulated him hoping he would fall in line with US interests in Iraq, as did the recently appointed female Ambassador, Alina Romanowski, a former CIA operative and one time deputy director of USAID, inter alia. [33] [34] Iran had already gotten the man it wanted in power via al-Maliki. As for Saudi, business, as usual, was doubtless foremost in mind.

Al-Sudani also tellingly called upon the Integrity Commission, the Joint Operations Command (JOC), the President of the Supreme Judicial Council and the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq to ensure their loyalty.

On October 31st he appointed Lieutenant General Qais Khalaf al-Mohammadawi as deputy chief of the JOC, replacing Lieutenant General Abdul-Amir al-Shammari in that role, and moving the latter to the post of Minister of Interior where some commentators predict he will have a tough time alongside the PMF’s al-Asadi.

The next day, al-Sudani cancelled all the appointments of senior officials made by Mustafa al-Kadhimi since October 8, 2021 claiming that as interim Prime Minister his predecessor did not have the authority to make such senior appointments. The sackings included the head of Iraqi National Intelligence (INA), the Commander of the Special Division, the Mayor of Baghdad, and four regional governors.

These moves will in turn be likely to affect some 800 mid-level and senior government positions – most likely those known to have opposed the PMF in the surmise of this author. Al Sudani had already gained valuable experience ferreting officials out through his involvement in the De-Ba’athification drive.

That same day, former PUK Water Resources Minister, (Abdul) Latif Rashid, the new paper president – who had done nothing useful to try to save Iraq’s water or resolve water war issues with its greedy neighbours – contradicted an earlier pledge given that there was any commitment to hold elections early within a year, claiming the “political crisis is over.”  [35]

Just a month before, in September 2022, KDP chief, Massoud Barzani, and the Sunni Arab Siyada (Sovereign) leader, Sheikh Khamis al-Khanjar, had stressed the need for early elections that should take place according to constitutional frameworks after the formation of a new government “that has full powers and the confidence of everyone.”

The statements in favor of reconvening parliament and forming a government came a few days after Sadr had called on his Sunni and Kurdish allies to resign to “delegitimize parliament and dissolve it immediately.” This they failed to do.

On September 12, the rival Coordination Framework (CF) had doubtless chuckled over the KDP and Siyada’s stand “concerning the formation of a government with full powers.” Nouri al-Maliki had stressed that there would be no early elections unless parliament reconvened and a new, fully empowered government was formed. [36]

This essential condition for forming a new cabinet after a year of wrangling is now left in doubt. The hot potato fell into the CF’s hands (and those of al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition, formed for the 2010 elections37) as al-Sadr’s muscle flexing failed. Moqtada was ultimately undermined by expedient allies, the KDP, and Siyada, their being more concerned with staying in power.

Thair (Thaer) Mukhief of the CF’s State of Law Coalition38 also contended there would be no fresh elections depending on the performance of al-Sudani’s government and that it could carry on for the full four-year term.

Big bucks

Kamal Cougar (Jojar), of the parliamentary finance committee, said the budget was expected to be one of the largest ever in the country’s history, reaching between $120-$130 billion possibly including up to $60 billion in investment spending. [39]

So where will the money go?

Meanwhile, Iran is intent on completing work on a railway line that will transit Iraq to the Mediterranean at Lattakia in Syria. Former Syrian diplomat in Washington, Bassam Barbandi, said the project would amount to an Iranian economic takeover of the region… stressing that the project railway connection, enshrines the Iranian presence in Syria and Iraq. [40]

The Basra-Salamcheh railway and Shatt al-Arab Bridge project also aims to be completed within two years that will see the southern border of Iraq melts away when the last 32 km is built.

Post Ba’ath Shi’a dominated Iraq has become one of Iran’s closest economic partners. Iran’s exports to Iraq have so far reached $14 billion a year, and Iran has set a $20 billion export target such that the overland connection could allow it to increase its trade with Iraq, Syria and Europe. [41]

Iran’s critics have voiced their fears that the land corridor continuing across Iraq and Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon would facilitate the transit of Iranian military transport, weapons and personnel.42 But that has already become standard practice in Syria and Lebanon and increasingly in Iraq since the Americans lost control. Israel has the most of all to worry about from this project. Nuclear and long-range weapons are not necessary when the foe can arrive at the front door.

Iraqis also have much to fear from the increasing hold of Iran over all aspects of life in their country, not least their cultural identity. It is they who are really losing Iraq.

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

• Read more
• Part III: Iraq in the Shadow of Khomeinism – Part III: Iraq is NOT Iran! 24.12.2021
• Part II: Iraq in the Shadow of Khomeinism – Part II: Iran’s Proxies Parade Their Power Over Iraq 5.7.2021
• Part I: Iraq in the Shadow of Khomeinism – Part I: Baghdad And Erbil Under Threat 20.3.2021

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