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Found 11 results

  1. How Iran Won the Iraq War Iranian soldiers march during the annual military parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the devastating 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in the capital Tehran on September 22, 2022. AFP-Getty Images BY FRANK SOBCHAK AND MATTHEW ZAIS MARCH 22, 2023 1:44 PM EDT Sobchak is a retired Army Special Forces Colonel; Zais is a retired Infantry Colonel. Both are West Point graduates and authors of the Army’s History of the Iraq War. As we observe the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War, which claimed more than 4,600 American lives and countless Iraqis, we must make an honest assessment of the war. The war cost the U.S. trillions, upended Middle East stability, and ultimately benefited Iran’s aggressive and expansionist agenda by capturing much of the political and military institutions in Baghdad and Damascus. Despite its tremendous cost, the war weakened America’s geostrategic position and damaged our national credibility. What can be learned from this calamity? As authors of the U.S. government’s definitive study on the Iraq War, two somewhat conflicting central points stand out. First, the war should never have occurred. Second, once the war began, it should not have been abandoned without leaving behind a stable Iraq, even if that meant staying for years. Invading Iraq in 2003 was strategic folly and one of the worst foreign policy decisions in the history of the Republic. Tainted and inaccurate intelligence provided justification for disarming Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. Pretending that Iraq could be the hearth for democracy in the Middle East or that it was abetting Al Qaeda terrorists were similar delusions. But the decision to invade defied an even larger truth, one that was clear even before the war. Iraq provided a physical and practical buffer to Iran, a country that few disputed had an active weapons of mass destruction program in 2003 and which has consistently demonstrated the intent to use such a capability alongside its terrorist objectives. Iran, which regularly calls for the destruction of the U.S. and actively supports our enemies, was the larger and clearer threat to our interests both then and now. Regime change in Iraq destroyed a status quo that, by extension, benefitted the U.S. In essence, Iraq’s geostrategic position in 2003 helped regional security by focusing Iran’s attention and resources next door. In addition to this geopolitical damage, the preemptive invasion, conducted without U.N. Security Council authorization and on the basis of dubious intelligence, squandered our international standing and goodwill, which was abundant in the wake of 9/11. Once the invasion occurred and Iraq’s security forces evaporated those same considerations should have driven U.S. policy to restore the country’s stability, vis-à-vis Iran. The region represents a vital strategic interest for the U.S., as does blocking the expansion of Iranian influence. Unfortunately, the U.S. chose to ignore this reality and when politically expedient, withdrew from Iraq and hoped for the best. Beyond the error of the initial invasion, withdrawing was nearly as significant a strategic error, placing Iraq’s future into the hands of a corrupt and sectarian Prime Minister who was intent to establish Shia domination and Iranian alignment. While Iraq’s condition had improved significantly since 2003, sufficient signs existed in 2011 that progress was fragile. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s sectarianism and authoritarianism, toxic components that would lead to further destruction of Iraq, had been on full display and reported to Washington. Iraq, shattered by decades of war, sanctions, and corruption, needed longer to heal and needed American help to prevent an Iranian takeover. Although we had decided that we were done with Iraq and all its associated challenges, Iraq wasn’t done with us. American strategic myopia enabled Maliki’s government to kill or disenfranchise Sunnis and financially isolate the Kurds, paving the way for the rise of ISIS and a return of U.S. forces. We are still in Iraq today, and still without a status of forces agreement that was used for political cover to end our military presence in 2011. But today’s Iraq looks very different. Iranian-backed militias, on the Iraqi payroll, now outnumber the Iraqi Army. The Ministry of Defense now includes officers and generals who are designated terrorists. Iranian aligned militias have captured state resources through political representation in Parliament and by controlling key posts in lucrative ministries. Iran’s influence now waxes in an uninterrupted arc from Tehran to the Mediterranean, traipsing across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Retaining U.S. forces in Iraq would have been a difficult decision for a war weary America. But a residual force that was closely tied to key political objectives and aimed at reducing Iranian influence could have prevented the treacherous strategic situation we face today: Iraq as a broken and devastated nation, serving as a base and transit point for Iranian forces. Luckily, the U.S. retains some tools to steer Iraq to a more constructive and stable future. The U.S. can impose high economic costs on the Iraqi military and government to remove Iran-backed terrorists from its payroll, withhold U.S. banknote transfers that inexplicably continue despite their laundering by Iran, and remove sanctions waivers so Iraq can free itself from an artificial energy dependence on Iran. And perhaps most importantly, the U.S. must militarily deter Iran so that it retracts rather than expands its regional aggression. Only these measures are likely to reverse the tailspin of Iraq’s perilous future, a future that we set in motion twenty years ago. https://time.com/6265077/how-iran-won-the-iraq-war/
  2. Central Bank Governor: The committed issuers are the ones who can trust the country's economy The governor of the Central Bank stressed that "the committed exporters who return their currencies to the country are the people of confidence in the country's economy, and we must pave the way for them by facilitating laws and regulations." Today, Saturday, Central Bank Governor Abdel Nasser Hemmati, at the "Exporters' Appreciation in the Field of Foreign Exchange Return", which was attended by 50 exporters, thanked the exporters who did not allow to cut off the country's economic cycle and said, "Of the total of 108 exporters, nearly From 23 billion euros (about 26 billion dollars) to the country's economic cycle in about two and a half years, which is an important number. " The currency returned to the country by 50 exporters, which amounted to nearly 100% of the hard currency revenues generated by their exports during the period from 1997 to the end of May 1999 and present at today's meeting, is equivalent to 22 billion dollars. The head of the Council of Money and Appropriations stated that the enemy's goal was the collapse of the country, adding that we are in a difficult situation and our dear people are under the most severe pressures and economic problems. But the enemy was not able to achieve its main goal, which is the collapse of the regime and the country, and certainly you the exporters did not allow them to achieve their goals under the conditions of economic war. Hemati thanked the exporters who presented their views in this meeting, saying that the Central Bank welcomes the opinions of committed exporters like you, and I will raise these issues in the government and present them to the President of the Republic. The governor of the Central Bank said that all other exporters like you who abide by their pledges and return their currency to the country do not need to make a commitment. Therefore, it is necessary to be grateful to you for facilitating the rules and regulations, and in such a case, the country's economy must support the exporters who have been fulfilling their obligations for several Years. Hemmati stressed that the proposed prices in the foreign exchange market are not real, saying: “I still believe that despite the embargo pressures imposed on the country, or the difficulties associated with oil exports, the return of foreign exchange from export revenues and the decline in government revenues, these prices are not It should be noted that in such circumstances, the biggest loss is for fixed income categories that form the main body of our country, and he said, “We are determined to control the exchange rate because it is in the country's interest to enhance the value of the national currency, and on this basis we work to adjust the price. Exchange ". Humati, exporters, hard currency
  3. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-iraq-iranian-power.html Middle East Middle East|Iran Dominates in Iraq After U.S. ‘Handed the Country Over’ Tehran's Turn Iran Dominates in Iraq After U.S. ‘Handed the Country Over’ By Tim Arango July 15, 2017 Image Members of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a mostly Shiite militia group, at their post at the Iraqi border with Syria.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times BAGHDAD — Walk into almost any market in Iraq and the shelves are filled with goods from Iran — milk, yogurt, chicken. Turn on the television and channel after channel broadcasts programs sympathetic to Iran. A new building goes up? It is likely that the cement and bricks came from Iran. And when bored young Iraqi men take pills to get high, the illicit drugs are likely to have been smuggled across the porous Iranian border. And that’s not even the half of it. Across the country, Iranian-sponsored militias are hard at work establishing a corridor to move men and guns to proxy forces in Syria and Lebanon. And in the halls of power in Baghdad, even the most senior Iraqi cabinet officials have been blessed, or bounced out, by Iran’s leadership. When the United States invaded Iraq 14 years ago to topple Saddam Hussein, it saw Iraq as a potential cornerstone of a democratic and Western-facing Middle East, and vast amounts of blood and treasure — about 4,500 American lives lost, more than $1 trillion spent — were poured into the cause. From Day 1, Iran saw something else: a chance to make a client state of Iraq, a former enemy against which it fought a war in the 1980s so brutal, with chemical weapons and trench warfare, that historians look to World War I for analogies. If it succeeded, Iraq would never again pose a threat, and it could serve as a jumping-off point to spread Iranian influence around the region. In that contest, Iran won, and the United States lost. Over the past three years, Americans have focused on the battle against the Islamic State in Iraq, returning more than 5,000 troops to the country and helping to force the militants out of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. But Iran never lost sight of its mission: to dominate its neighbor so thoroughly that Iraq could never again endanger it militarily, and to use the country to effectively control a corridor from Tehran to the Mediterranean. “Iranian influence is dominant,” said Hoshyar Zebari, who was ousted last year as finance minister because, he said, Iran distrusted his links to the United States. “It is paramount.” The country’s dominance over Iraq has heightened sectarian tensions around the region, with Sunni states, and American allies, like Saudi Arabia mobilizing to oppose Iranian expansionism. But Iraq is only part of Iran’s expansion project; it has also used soft and hard power to extend its influence in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, and throughout the region. Iran is a Shiite state, and Iraq, a Shiite majority country, was ruled by an elite Sunni minority before the American invasion. The roots of the schism between Sunnis and Shiites, going back almost 1,400 years, lie in differences over the rightful leaders of Islam after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. But these days, it is about geopolitics as much as religion, with the divide expressed by different states that are adversaries, led by Saudi Arabia on one side and Iran on the other. Iran’s influence in Iraq is not just ascendant, but diverse, projecting into military, political, economic and cultural affairs. At some border posts in the south, Iraqi sovereignty is an afterthought. Busloads of young militia recruits cross into Iran without so much as a document check. They receive military training and are then flown to Syria, where they fight under the command of Iranian officers in defense of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Passing in the other direction, truck drivers pump Iranian products — food, household goods, illicit drugs — into what has become a vital and captive market. Iran tips the scales to its favor in every area of commerce. In the city of Najaf, it even picks up the trash, after the provincial council there awarded a municipal contract to a private Iranian company. One member of the council, Zuhair al-Jibouri, resorted to a now-common Iraqi aphorism: “We import apples from Iran so we can give them away to Iranian pilgrims.” Politically, Iran has a large number of allies in Iraq’s Parliament who can help secure its goals. And its influence over the choice of interior minister, through a militia and political group the Iranians built up in the 1980s to oppose Mr. Hussein, has given it substantial control over that ministry and the federal police. Perhaps most crucial, Parliament passed a law last year that effectively made the constellation of Shiite militias a permanent fixture of Iraq’s security forces. This ensures Iraqi funding for the groups while effectively maintaining Iran’s control over some of the most powerful units. Now, with new parliamentary elections on the horizon, Shiite militias have begun organizing themselves politically for a contest that could secure even more dominance for Iran over Iraq’s political system. To gain advantage on the airwaves, new television channels set up with Iranian money and linked to Shiite militias broadcast news coverage portraying Iran as Iraq’s protector and the United States as a devious interloper. Partly in an effort to contain Iran, the United States has indicated that it will keep troops behind in Iraq after the battle against the Islamic State. American diplomats have worked to emphasize the government security forces’ role in the fighting, and to shore up a prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, who has seemed more open to the United States than to Iran. But after the United States’ abrupt withdrawal of troops in 2011, American constancy is still in question here — a broad failure of American foreign policy, with responsibility shared across three administrations. Iran has been playing a deeper game, parlaying extensive religious ties with Iraq’s Shiite majority and a much wider network of local allies, as it makes the case that it is Iraq’s only reliable defender. A Road to the Sea Iran’s great project in eastern Iraq may not look like much: a 15-mile stretch of dusty road, mostly gravel, through desert and scrub near the border in Diyala Province. But it is an important new leg of Iran’s path through Iraq to Syria, and what it carries — Shiite militiamen, Iranian delegations, trade goods and military supplies — is its most valuable feature. It is a piece of what analysts and Iranian officials say is Iran’s most pressing ambition: to exploit the chaos of the region to project influence across Iraq and beyond. Eventually, analysts say, Iran could use the corridor, established on the ground through militias under its control, to ship weapons and supplies to proxies in Syria, where Iran is an important backer of Mr. Assad, and to Lebanon and its ally Hezbollah. At the border to the east is a new crossing built and secured by Iran. Like the relationship between the two countries, it is lopsided. The checkpoint’s daily traffic includes up to 200 Iranian trucks, carrying fruit and yogurt, concrete and bricks, into Iraq. In the offices of Iraqi border guards, the candies and soda offered to guests come from Iran. No loaded trucks go the other way. “Iraq doesn’t have anything to offer Iran,” Vahid Gachi, the Iranian official in charge of the crossing, said in an interview in his office, as lines of tractor-trailers poured into Iraq. “Except for oil, Iraq relies on Iran for everything.” The border post is also a critical transit point for Iran’s military leaders to send weapons and other supplies to proxies fighting the Islamic State in Iraq. After the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, swept across Diyala and neighboring areas in 2014, Iran made clearing the province, a diverse area of Sunnis and Shiites, a priority. It marshaled a huge force of Shiite militias, many trained in Iran and advised on the ground by Iranian officials. After a quick victory, Iranians and their militia allies set about securing their next interests here: marginalizing the province’s Sunni minority and securing a path to Syria. Iran has fought aggressively to keep its ally Mr. Assad in power in order to retain land access to its most important spinoff in the region, Hezbollah, the military and political force that dominates Lebanon and threatens Israel. A word from Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s powerful spymaster, sent an army of local Iraqi contractors scrambling, lining up trucks and bulldozers to help build the road, free of charge. Militiamen loyal to Iran were ordered to secure the site. Uday al-Khadran, the Shiite mayor of Khalis District in Diyala, is a member of the Badr Organization, an Iraqi political party and militia established by Tehran in the 1980s to fight against Mr. Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. On an afternoon earlier this year, he spread a map across his desk and proudly discussed how he helped build the road, which he said was ordered by General Suleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, the branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps responsible for foreign operations. General Suleimani secretly directed Iran’s policy in Iraq after the American invasion in 2003, and was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in attacks carried out by militias under his control. “I love Qassim Suleimani more than my children,” he said. Mr. Khadran said the general’s new road would eventually be a shortcut for religious pilgrims from Iran to reach Samarra, Iraq, the location of an important shrine. But he also acknowledged the route’s greater strategic significance as part of a corridor secured by Iranian proxies that extends across central and northern Iraq. The connecting series of roads skirts the western city of Mosul and stretches on to Tal Afar, an Islamic State-controlled city where Iranian-backed militias and Iranian advisers have set up a base at an airstrip on the outskirts. “Diyala is the passage to Syria and Lebanon, and this is very important to Iran,” said Ali al-Daini, the Sunni chairman of the provincial council there. Closer to Syria, Iranian-allied militias moved west of Mosul as the battle against the Islamic State unfolded there in recent months. The militias captured the town of Baaj, and then proceeded to the Syrian border, putting Iran on the cusp of completing its corridor. Back east, in Diyala, Mr. Daini said he had been powerless to halt what he described as Iran’s dominance in the province. When Mr. Daini goes to work, he said, he has to walk by posters of Iran’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, outside the council building. Iran’s militias in the province have been accused of widespread sectarian cleansing, pushing Sunnis from their homes to establish Shiite dominance and create a buffer zone on its border. The Islamic State was beaten in Diyala more than two years ago, but thousands of Sunni families still fill squalid camps, unable to return home. Now, Diyala has become a showcase for how Iran views Shiite ascendancy as critical to its geopolitical goals. “Iran is smarter than America,” said Nijat al-Taie, a Sunni member of the provincial council and an outspoken critic of Iran, which she calls the instigator of several assassination attempts against her. “They achieved their goals on the ground. America didn’t protect Iraq. They just toppled the regime and handed the country over to Iran.” The Business of Influence The lives of General Suleimani and other senior leaders in Tehran were shaped by the prolonged war with Iraq in the 1980s. The conflict left hundreds of thousands dead on both sides, and General Suleimani spent much of the war at the front, swiftly rising in rank as so many officers were killed. “The Iran-Iraq war was the formative experience for all of Iran’s leaders,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution organization. “From Suleimani all the way down. It was their ‘never again’ moment.” A border dispute over the Shatt al Arab waterway that was a factor in the hostilities has still not been resolved, and the legacy of the war’s brutality has influenced the Iranian government ever since, from its pursuit of nuclear weapons to its policy in Iraq. “This is a permanent scar in their mind,” said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a lawmaker and former national security adviser. “They are obsessed with Baathism, Saddam and the Iran-Iraq war.” More than anything else, analysts say, it is the scarring legacy of that war that has driven Iranian ambitions to dominate Iraq. Particularly in southern Iraq, where the population is mostly Shiite, signs of Iranian influence are everywhere. Iranian-backed militias are the defenders of the Shiite shrines in the cities of Najaf and Karbala that drive trade and tourism. In local councils, Iranian-backed political parties have solid majorities, and campaign materials stress relationships with Shiite saints and Iranian clerics. If the Iraqi government were stronger, said Mustaq al-Abady, a businessman from just outside Najaf, “then maybe we could open our factories instead of going to Iran.” He said his warehouse was crowded with Iranian imports because his government had done nothing to promote a private sector, police its borders or enforce customs duties. Raad Fadhil al-Alwani, a merchant in Hilla, another southern city, imports cleaning supplies and floor tiles from Iran. He slaps “Made in Iraq” labels in Arabic on bottles of detergent, but the reality is that he owns a factory in Iran because labor is cheaper there. “I feel like I am destroying the economy of Iraq,” he said. But he insists that Iraqi politicians, by deferring to Iranian pressure and refusing to support local industry, have made it hard to do anything else. Najaf attracts millions of Iranian pilgrims each year visiting the golden-domed shrine of Imam Ali, the first Shiite imam. Iranian construction workers — many of whom are viewed as Iranian spies by Iraqi officials — have also flocked to the city to renovate the shrine and build hotels. In Babil Province, according to local officials, militia leaders have taken over a government project to set up security cameras along strategic roads. The project had been granted to a Chinese company before the militias intervened, and now the army and the local police have been sidelined from it, said Muqdad Omran, an Iraqi Army captain in the area. Iran’s pre-eminence in the Iraqi south has not come without resentment. Iraqi Shiites share a faith with Iran, but they also hold close their other identities as Iraqis and Arabs. “Iraq belongs to the Arab League, not to Iran,” said Sheikh Fadhil al-Bidayri, a cleric at the religious seminary in Najaf. “Shiites are a majority in Iraq, but a minority in the world. As long as the Iranian government is controlling the Iraqi government, we don’t have a chance.” In this region where the Islamic State’s military threat has never encroached, Iran’s security concerns are mostly being addressed by economic manipulation, Iraqi officials say. Trade in the south is often financed by Iran with credit, and incentives are offered to Iraqi traders to keep their cash in Iranian banks. Baghdad’s banks play a role, too, as the financial anchors for Iraqi front companies used by Iran to gain access to dollars that can then finance the country’s broader geopolitical aims, said Entifadh Qanbar, a former aide to the Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, who died in 2015. “It’s very important for the Iranians to maintain corruption in Iraq,” he said. The Militias’ Long Arm For decades, Iran smuggled guns and bomb-making supplies through the vast swamps of southern Iraq. And young men were brought back and forth across the border, from one safe house to another — recruits going to Iran for training, and then back to Iraq to fight. At first the enemy was Mr. Hussein; later, it was the Americans. Today, agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards openly recruit fighters in the Shiite-majority cities of southern Iraq. Buses filled with recruits easily pass border posts that officials say are essentially controlled by Iran — through its proxies on the Iraqi side, and its own border guards on the other. While Iran has built up militias to fight against the Islamic State in Iraq, it has also mobilized an army of disaffected young Shiite Iraqi men to fight on its behalf in Syria. Mohammad Kadhim, 31, is one of those foot soldiers for Iran, having served three tours in Syria. The recruiting pitch, he said, is mostly based in faith, to defend Shiite shrines in Syria. But Mr. Kadhim said he and his friends signed up more out of a need for jobs. “I was just looking for money,” he said. “The majority of the youth I met fighting in Syria do it for the money.” He signed up with a Revolutionary Guards recruiter in Najaf, and then was bused through southern Iraq and into Iran, where he underwent military training near Tehran. There, he said, Iranian officers delivered speeches invoking the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the revered seventh-century Shiite figure whose death at the hands of a powerful Sunni army became the event around which Shiite spirituality would revolve. The same enemies of the Shiites who killed the imam are now in Syria and Iraq, the officers told the men. After traveling to Iran, Mr. Kadhim came home for a break and then was shipped to Syria, where Hezbollah operatives trained him in sniper tactics. Iran’s emphasis on defending the Shiite faith has led some here to conclude that its ultimate goal is to bring about an Iranian-style theocracy in Iraq. But there is a persistent sense that it just would not work in Iraq, which has a much larger native Sunni population and tradition, and Iraq’s clerics in Najaf, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the world’s pre-eminent Shiite spiritual leader, oppose the Iranian system. But Iran is taking steps to translate militia power into political power, much as it did with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and militia leaders have begun political organizing before next year’s parliamentary elections. In April, Qais al-Khazali, a Shiite militia leader, delivered a speech to an audience of Iraqi college students, railing against the United States and the nefarious plotting of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Then, a poet who was part of Mr. Khazali’s entourage stood up and began praising General Suleimani. For the students, that was the last straw. Chants of “Iran out! Iran out!” began. Scuffles broke out between students and Mr. Khazali’s bodyguards, who fired their rifles into the air just outside the building. “The thing that really provoked us was the poet,” said Mustafa Kamal, a student at the University of al-Qadisiya in Diwaniya, in southern Iraq, who participated in the protest. Mr. Kamal and his fellow students quickly learned how dangerous it could be to stand up to Iran these days. First, militiamen began threatening to haul them off. Then media outlets linked to the militias went after them, posting their pictures and calling them Baathists and enemies of Shiites. When a mysterious car appeared near Mr. Kamal’s house, his mother panicked that militiamen were coming for her son. Then, finally, Mr. Kamal, a law student, and three of his friends received notices from the school saying they had been suspended for a year. “We thought we had only one hope, the university,” he said. “And then Iran also interfered there.” Mr. Khazali, whose political and militia organization, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, is deeply connected with Iran, has been on a speaking tour on campuses across Iraq as part of an effort to organize political support for next year’s national election. This has raised fears that Iran is trying not only to deepen its influence within Iraqi education, but also to transform militias into outright political and social organizations, much as it did with Hezbollah in Lebanon. “It’s another type of Iranian infiltration and the expansion of Iran’s influence,” said Beriwan Khailany, a lawmaker and member of Parliament’s higher-education committee. “Iran wants to control the youth, and to teach them the Iranian beliefs, through Iraqis who are loyal to Iran.” Political Ascendancy When a group of Qatari falcon hunters, “including members of the royal family, were kidnapped in 2015 while on safari in the southern deserts of Iraq, Qatar called Iran and its militia allies — not the central government in Baghdad. For Mr. Abadi, the prime minister, the episode was an embarrassing demonstration of his government’s weakness at the hands of Iran, whose proxy militia Kataibb Hezbollah was believed to be behind the kidnapping. So when the hostage negotiations were about to end, Mr. Abadi pushed back. Around noon on a day in April, a government jet from Qatar landed in Baghdad, carrying a delegation of diplomats and 500 million euros stuffed into 23 black boxes. The hunters were soon on their way home, but the ransom did not go to the Iranian-backed militiamen who had abducted the Qataris; the cash ended up in a central bank vault in Baghdad. The seizure of the money had been ordered by Mr. Abadi, who was furious at the prospect of militias, and their Iranian and Hezbollah benefactors, being paid so richly right under the Iraqi government’s nose. “Hundreds of millions to armed groups?” Mr. Abadi said in a public rant. “Is this acceptable?” In Iraq, the kidnapping episode was seen as a violation of the country’s sovereignty and emblematic of Iran’s suffocating power over the Iraqi state. In a post on Twitter, Mr. Zebari, the former finance minister, who was previously foreign minister, called the episode a “travesty.” Mr. Zebari knows firsthand the power of Iran over the Iraqi state. Last year, he said, he was ousted as finance minister because Iran perceived him as being too close to the United States. The account was verified by a member of Parliament who was involved in the removal of Mr. Zebari, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering Iran. Mr. Zebari, who recounted the events in an interview from his mountainside mansion in northern Iraq, said that when President Barack Obama met with Mr. Abadi last September at the United Nations, the American leader personally lobbied to save Mr. Zebari’s job. Even that was not enough. Mr. Abadi now finds himself in a difficult position. If he makes any move that can be seen as confrontational toward Iran, or as positioning himself closer to the United States, it could place a cloud over his political future. “He had two options: to be with the Americans or with the Iranians,” said Izzat Shahbander, a prominent Iraqi Shiite leader who once lived in exile in Iran while Mr. Hussein was in power. “And he chose to be with the Americans.” Mr. Abadi, who took office in 2014 with the support of both the United States and Iran, has seemed more emboldened to push back against Iranian pressure since President Trump took office. In addition to seizing the ransom money, he has promoted an ambitious project for an American company to secure the highway from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan, which Iran has opposed. He has also begun discussing with the United States the terms of a deal to keep American forces behind after the Islamic State is defeated. Some are seeing an American troop commitment as a chance to revisit the 2011 withdrawal of United States forces that seemingly opened a door for Iran. When American officials in Iraq began the slow wind-down of the military mission there, in 2009, some diplomats in Baghdad were cautiously celebrating one achievement: Iran seemed to be on its heels, its influence in the country waning. “Over the last year, Iran has lost the strategic initiative in Iraq,” one diplomat wrote in a cable, later released by WikiLeaks. But other cables sent warnings back to Washington that were frequently voiced by Iraqi officials they spoke to: that if the Americans left, then Iran would fill the vacuum. Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador in Iraq from 2007 to 2009, said that if the United States left again after the Islamic State was defeated, “it would be effectively just giving the Iranians a free rein.” But many Iraqis say the Iranians already have free rein. And while the Trump administration has indicated that it will pay closer attention to Iraq as a means to counter Iran, the question is whether it is too late. “Iran is not going to sit silent and do nothing,” said Sami al-Askari, a senior Shiite politician who has good relationships with both the Iranians and Americans. “They have many means. Frankly, the Americans can’t do anything.”
  4. Luigi found these articles of Dinarian interests... Demonstrators demand Iran out of Iraq politics. Oil revenues & CBI auctions benefited Iran, not the Iraqis. Iran still has influence within the CBI. Allak must go. He was installed by Maliki & Iran. This may explain why Iraq has not progressed in the past 3 years. The current GOI & CBI are still in bed with the Iranians. Iran continues to strip Iraq of it's wealth through fake proxy companies. Treat as rumors. Not varafied. Your opine. 16 Nov 2019FROM FRANK: FROM FF EDDIE: ON TV NEWS TODAY SHOWING WHERE HALT OF THE US DOLLAR SALE IN THE AUCTIONS BY CBI HAS ENDED MILLIONS OF FAKE FUNDS TO IRAN. AND THEY ARE SAYING WITH THAT MONEY IRAQ COULD BUILD 200 SCHOOLS AND 50 HOSPITALS A YEAR THIS WAS SHOWN ON THE BIG SCREENS AND THE CROWDS OF PROTESTORS CHEERED AND ROARED WITH EXCITEMENT. CITIZENS SAYING THIS IS A START AND WANT TOTAL END TO AUCTIONS AND WANT ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE DEATHS AND WHERE THE MONEY FOR OIL REVENUES IS GOING. HE SAYS THANK YOU AND THIS HALT IF THE US DOLLAR HAS BEEN IN THE LAST FEW DAYS BUT HAS PUT END TO THE FAKE FUNDS ALL HEADING TO IRAN. 6 nov 2019 Don961: Washington will begin actions against the corrupt who stole the money of the Iraqi people 16 Nov 2019 Samson: Post 111) Source: The sale of dollars in the central bank stopped blocking the arrival of large fake funds to Iran. 16 Nov 2019 DELTA: THANK YOU SO MUCH SAMSON…….VERY HUGE …THEY ARE SAYING THAT CBI STOP SELLING DOLLARS AND NEW MEASURES ….THE ONLY WAY THEY CAN STOP THE AUCTION IF THEY CHANGE THE RATE…..IMO THIS WEEK MIGHT BE IT …WE SHOULD FIND OUT IN THE NEXT 24-48 HRS THE NEXT MOVE FOR CBI.. 16 Nov 2019 FROM FRANK: FROM FF EDDIE: ON TV NEWS TODAY SHOWING WHERE HALT OF THE US DOLLAR SALE IN THE AUCTIONS BY CBI HAS ENDED MILLIONS OF FAKE FUNDS TO IRAN. AND THEY ARE SAYING WITH THAT MONEY IRAQ COULD BUILD 200 SCHOOLS AND 50 HOSPITALS A YEAR. THIS WAS SHOWN ON THE BIG SCREENS AND THE CROWDS OF PROTESTERS CHEERED AND ROARED WITH EXCITEMENT. CITIZENS SAYING THIS IS A START AND WANT TOTAL END TO AUCTIONS AND WANT ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE DEATHS AND WHERE THE MONEY FOR OIL REVENUES IS GOING. HE SAYS THANK YOU AND THIS HALT IF THE US DOLLAR HAS BEEN IN THE LAST FEW DAYS BUT HAS PUT END TO THE FAKE FUNDS ALL HEADING TO IRAN. FAMILY THIS IS FROM FF EDDIE IN ADDITION TO POST #111……
  5. Iran’s political influence in Iraq cannot be questioned as facts on ground prove it, and Iranians and their proxies boast and are not afraid to speak openly about it. Wherever the influence is, it is relies on a local means and arms operating inside the country and direct influence in the Iraqi government of Haider al-Abadi. How this affect the Iraqi dinar and the delaying of the revaluation we are waiting for years.. I'm in this dinar saga for 13 years. Please your opinion!
  6. Nezhat Amiri’s recent high-profile performance caps a 38-year fight for recognition Saeed Kamali Dehghan Iran correspondent Tue 20 Feb 2018 05.00 GMT Nezhat Amiri performing in Tehran’s Vahdat auditorium Photograph: Alireza Ramezani/Ilna.ir More pics in link https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/20/the-conductor-smashing-iranian-taboos-over-women-and-music
  7. Daughter of high-profile dissidents talks about how their murder nearly 20 years ago continues to inform her work Saeed Kamali Dehghan Friday 29 September 2017 07.19 BST Parastou Forouhar says she finds ‘healing in repetition’ through her artwork. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist More pics in link https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/29/art-iran-parastou-forouhar-family-revolution-artist
  8. Parks exclusively for women are popping up in Iranian cities, but critics are divided over whether this is just another ploy to keep them hidden in public Renate van der Zee in Tehran Wednesday 9 August 2017 07.25 BST Iranian women practice parkour skills at a park in Tehran. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/aug/09/women-only-parks-tehran-iran-segregated-outside-spaces#img-1
  9. Iran a 'time bomb' for oil prices http://finance.yahoo.com/news/iran-time-bomb-oil-prices-090835402.html Almost seems this might work in Iraq's favor. Your thoughts? / Peace Out, roomies
  10. Greetings, The Price of Oil and Gasto head downward by 2020? Iraq, Iran Plot Oil Revolution, Challenge Saudi Posted on 29 January 2014 Iraq and Iran, which together hold more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, are planning to challenge Saudi Arabia's grip on OPEC and its status as the "swing producer" in the cartel, according to a report from The Telegraph. With Iraq poised to triple its capacity to 9 million bpd by 2020, the result could be a dramatic fall in oil prices. Hussain al-Shahristani, Deputy Prime Minister for Energy, said: "We feel the world needs to be assured of fuel for economic growth ... It's very difficult to predict actual world (oil) demand by 2020 because the world economy is unpredictable ... Iran has been in touch with us; they want to share our contracts model and experience."
  11. I know enough to know that I don't know enough to know how accurate the information is in this video but I believe the premise is plausible. While the video primarily addresses the MIddle East and Petro Dollars it inadvertently explains why Venezuela earlier in the year transferred their gold from Europe to China.
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