Iran’s
Concerns for Iraq’s Future
April 9, 2003
By Nasser Hadian-Jazy
Few
countries in the Middle East are as immersed in debate
and contemplation about future policy options and
choices towards Iraq as Iran.
Iran’s geographical proximity, an intense and
bloody history of war and conflict with Saddam’s Iraq;
the religious and emotional connection with the Iraqi
Shi’a;, and the inevitable interaction with United
States are all threads that connect Iran to Iraq, to its
post-Saddam future and to questions about American
regional preeminence. A discussion of Iran’s current
stance inevitably involves a few key issues and a major
lesson to be learned.
Paramount
among the concerns of Iran with regard to the situation
in Iraq is the preservation of Iraq’s territorial
integrity. (1) This
phenomenon includes, but is not limited to, a few key
issues with which Iran is concerned. It should be
pointed out that there are large indigenous Kurdish and
Shi’a populations within Iran itself. The Iranian
Kurds, as with Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, have had a
tendency for separatism in the past. Although the
political situation for Kurds in Iran is certainly
different than that in Iraq, a separate independent
Kurdish state in northern Iraq would be too extreme a
solution to the Kurdish problem from Iran’s
perspective. Unlike Turkey, however, Iran’s
willingness to see Iraq’s Kurdish population gain more
of a voice in government exists. Both of Turkey and
Iran, along with Syria, consider an independent Kurdish
state out of the question. But the federal system that has been proposed with regard to
Iraq (2) will not likely be a problem, as far as Iran is
concerned.
Since
Iraq’s creation, the Shi’a population has been
predominant in number, yet marginal in power.
Moreover, Iran sees America’s post-Saddam
policy as based on values and interests other than the
promotion of democracy. Iranians believe that U.S.
policy will in fact be driven more by stability,
strategic considerations, oil and the opinions of Arab
allies. As a result, they think that U.S. will not, in
the short run, support a fully democratic government in
Iraq based on the concept of ‘one individual-one
vote’. Such
a system would mean that the Shi’a population would
gain power as the majority, and this is contrary to the
interests of the U.S. and its principal Arab allies, all
of which have strong Sunni influence.
Iran is conscious of these concerns and is
seeking rather a fairer share of power for the Shi’a
population than they possessed in pre-war Iraq, with
adequate representation in the central government and
grassroots democracy in the localities.
Besides
Iran’s concerns with Iraq’s domestic structure, Iran
must also be wary that Iraq is not left again to assume
its familiar form as a nation possessing a weapons of
mass destruction capability and vague and hostile
intentions toward Iran. Iran has an interest in seeing
Iraq disarmed and de-fanged, as it has traditionally
been at the fore of Iran’s threat perception.
Additionally, the Iraqi Ba’ath leadership
developed cordial relations with the Mujahedin-e Khalq
(3), an organization that is bent on the destruction of
the Islamic Republic. Iran is unsure of the U.S.
intention with respect to the Mujahedin-e Khalq after
the Ba’athi regime is disbanded. Generally, Iran is
afraid that America’s lack of experience in a
multi-ethnic and multi-tribal landscape will leave Iraq
vulnerable if the U.S. does not follow up on its promise
of state- and nation- building. Iran is also concerned
that mafia-esque organizations will appear in Iraq’s
power struggle, and that the resulting wave of crime and
instability will eventually spill over into Iran.
Already
in Iran, there is the realization that Saddam’s
overthrow indicates that the state was too highly
centralized predicated on the personality of one
individual. Many Iranians have pointed out in the last
few days that there was no civil society to come
seriously to the defense of Saddam even as he was
confronted with a foreign invasion. Instead, the Iraqi
characteristic of “Saddam and everything Saddam”
hindered the country’s cohesion in a time of need.
Implicitly, the Iranian elite are trying to indicate
that without a bustling civil society--- political
parties, volunteer associations, a free press, and
significant social movements that mediate between the
state and society—the Tehran government will lack
support in the case of foreign invasion or internal
unrest. Thus a number of Iranian elites and political
activists indicate that Iran must increase its efforts
to promote pluralism if it stands to avoid the fate of
Iraq.
1. See, for example, Zeyno Baran, "Turkey's Difficult Balancing Act," in In the National Interest, January 29, 2003, at http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol2Issue4/Vol2Issue4Baran.html.
2. See the comments of Dr. Barham Salih, at http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/vol2issue10/vol2issue10salih.html.
3. See the comments of Ambassador L. Paul Bremer about the links between Saddam's regime and this organization, at http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol1issue5/Vol1issue5Bremer.html.
Nasser Hadian-Jazy is a professor of international relations at Tehran University in Iran. He is currently a visiting professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.