By Patrice Claude
Correspondent, Le Monde
April 3, 2008
Paris, 3 April (Le Monde) If there remained the slightest doubt
as for the major influence Iran has on the affairs of its Iraqi neighbor, the
cease-fire concluded on Sunday 30 March, between the radical militia chief,
the Shi’ite Moqtada Al-Sadr and three missi dominici representing the Prime
Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, also Shi’ite, should have definitively raised it.
Because it was in
Qom, the headquarters of the Iranian
religious authority that the negotiations took place. And it is, according to
a reliable source, under the supervision of an Iranian soldier, and not a
simple one, but that of General Qassem
Suleimani, the Commander of the notorious
Al-Qods brigades of the
Pasdarans, that this cease-fire was
finally concluded.
The cease-fire between Iraqi Prime Minister and Moqtada al
Sadr was brokered by the Iranians
Incidentally, at
least two of the three special representatives of Mr. Maliki, namely
Hadi Al Amari and
Ali Adib, have dual Iraqi-Iranian
nationality and they both lived some years of exile in Teheran. Mr. Adib is
member of the same religious party as the Prime Minister (Da’awa),
and Mr. Amari is the chief of a powerful allied militia, the
Badr organization, which dominates
the commandment of the new Iraqi national army and which was created, financed
and trained in Iran since 1980.
Throughout the week of armed confrontations that the Americans
approved, helped, and which made at least 470 killed and thousands of
casualties, they did not cease encouraging Teheran "to put all its influence
at the service of the stabilization" of the situation.
It is done now.
Washington and Teheran can mutually accuse each other of the worse misdeeds in
Iraq, but many are the political analysts in this country to think that the
two powers agree at least on the need for not letting a general chaos invading
Iraq.
Moqtada al Sadr's fighters
resisted assaults of the Iraqi army in Basra.
Engaged in the north
in an offensive against the Sunnite rebels of
Al-Qaida, the Americans, who do not have permanent military presence
in Basra, apparently believed Mr. Maliki when he told them that his offensive
would be almost an easy drive. As some of the Iraqi generals
themselves confirmed, they were "surprised" by the combativeness of
the Army of Mahdi, the militia of the sadrist current and by his capacity to
mobilize partisans in all the large cities of the Shi’ite south and up to
Baghdad.
Mr. Maliki did not
reach any the objectives which he had laid down. The "18 militia” registered
in Basra by Mr. Hosham Dawod, a
French-Iraqi researcher, are always in place and continuing with their juicy
traffics. None the districts of Basra or elsewhere that were under the control
of the Army of Mahdi were taken.
Hundreds of police officers and soldiers across the country
refused to open fire on the militiamen and at times, even joined them. For
their first large scale operation under national command, and in spite of 30
000 men on the spot, the new Iraqi army and police force formed by the
Americans had to call on the Anglo-Saxon allies in order to advance, or to get
them out of the quagmire.
Theoretically valid
until 8 of April, the offer of the Prime Minister "to purchase" the heavy
weapons of the combatants at high price had practically produce nothing.
Mr. Maliki, who had
imprudently sworn to remain in Bassora "until the victory", had to
return to Baghdad with a much meaner political credibility than before the
offensive. The fact that he qualified, on Tuesday, the operations as a "success"
and then abstains from signaling the end of the conflict, des not change
anything to the situation. There will be undoubtedly other confrontations
among the Shi’ites before the next regional elections scheduled for first of
October. "This is a great victory for Iran", says regretfully
Mr. Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish MP
close to the presidency of the Republic, an official always very well
informed. "Teheran showed that it is it and not Washington that has the
upper hand on our affairs. The aims of Iran are to make Maliki as
weak as possible so that he is obliged to accept its objectives. In
fact, he was forced to run to Qom to negotiate", he adds.
President Bush who had encouraged the initiative of his ally
and had judged that it was a "historical test for free Iraq" must
bite the fingers.
Translation and
highlights are by IPS
