Iranian President Says US Presence In Region Disturbs Security
Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi slammed the US presence in the Middle East during the visit of his Iraqi counterpart Abdul Latif Rashid to Tehran on Saturday.
Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi slammed the US presence in the Middle East during the visit of his Iraqi counterpart Abdul Latif Rashid to Tehran on Saturday.
After meeting with Rashid behind closed doors Raisi claimed “the US presence in the region disturbs regional security."
Iraq's president arrived in Tehran along with foreign, water resources, and electricity ministers as well as the national security adviser Saturday morning.
Adding that Americans think about their own interests, not those of the regional countries, Raisi said, "Our relationship with Iraq is based on common interests."
Iran, emboldened by the hasty US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, has intensified its rhetoric about forcing American troops out of Iraq and Syria.
Referring to the security agreement between the two countries in March Raisi added, “the smallest insecurity in Iraq would be viewed as insecurity in Iran; therefore, Iraq's security is important to Iran.”
Despite the eight-year war between the two neighbors in the 1980s, relations between the Shiite-majority countries have improved significantly since the 2003 invasion which led to the ouster Saddam Hussein.
Raisi further expressed hope that Rashid's visit to Tehran would be "a turning point" in improving ties between the two countries.
With sanctions hitting Iran, Iraq has become one of its major economic lifelines, while Tehran provides Iraq with electricity, gas, and other goods, although US sanctions do not allow Baghdad to make full payments in hard currency that Tehran desperately needs.
This comes as Iran’s financial network in Iraq was bypassing the US sanctions regime at the cost of the Iraqi economy. An informed source in Baghdad told Iran International late in December that Washington has received reports that Iraq is conducting trade with Iran using US dollars despite sanctions.
In early February, Iran International obtained information that revealed some details about the inner workings of a Revolutionary Guard’s Quds force unit tasked with smuggling money from Iraq to Iran. According to the information, the IRGC and the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Iraq were involved in money laundering operations that aim to funnel the regime’s revenues from oil and gas exports back to Iran. As per a repeatedly extended sanctions’ waiver by Washington, Tehran is only allowed to import medicine and some essential goods in exchange for its exports of gas and electricity to its neighboring country.
It is not clear if the issue of Iraq holding more than $11 billion of Iran's money was discussed.
For his part, the Iraqi president said his trip to Iran was intended to expand the already-prospering ties between the two countries.
“Relations between the two countries are coherent and getting stronger, and we must all work to develop them in coordination and continuous cooperation at all levels, including taking into account Iraq’s share of water, especially since most of the tributaries of the Tigris River and Shatt al-Arab originate in the Islamic Republic,” added Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid.
There are a number of rivers shared by Iraq and Iran, and access to them has been the source of friction in the past, contributing to the bloody war in the 1980s.
During their joint press conference, Raisi also touched upon the issue saying that “we respect Iraq's right to water according to the agreements signed in the past, and both countries must be committed and adhere to this right so as not to create problems and disruptions.”
Another topic discussed by the two presidents was the drug trade in the Middle East.
“We must cooperate in the fight against drugs, since they have become a cancer that destroys lives,” stressed Rashid.
During the past few years, the sale and use of drugs has increased in the Arab country while Iraqi security forces have intensified their anti-narcotics operations.
Iran is “at the forefront of the fight against drugs,” claimed Raisi, adding that “it is a source of satisfaction that Iraq is also determined in the fight against narcotics.”
Nonetheless, various conservative groups prepare for the parliamentary election in March 2024 and get together on an almost daily basis, discussing probable alliances.
Divides among conservatives were noted by the media when Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf's supporters in February accused the ultraconservative Paydari Party of using the controversy over hijab for political gain as the next election nears.
During the 2020 parliamentary elections, and Presidential election of 2021 conservatives at least pretended to be united in the absence of their reformist rivals.
According to Etemad Online, Conservative figurehead and former Majles Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel warned in March against divides and infighting within the conservative front and suggested that various groups should forget about their differences in the interest of unity of the "revolutionary front."
According to the website, when the Society To Promote Popular Institutions of the Islamic Revolution emerged as a conservative alliance in February, it was clearly the same alliance that was called JAMNA (Persian acronym for the Popular Front of Islamic Revolutionary Forces) in 2017, which was led by Haddad Adel.
The alliance was mainly consisting of IRGC-linked Isargaran and Rahpouyan groups. Like 2017, the group once again claimed to be the leading conservative group. Regardless of the word "revolutionary" in its name, the group is a traditional conservative entity. The group's rhetoric, however, looks like the fashionable revolutionary discourse promoted by Paydari, a younger and more aggressive group. Its leading figures are Haddad Adel, Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani and current lawmaker Zohreh Elahian.
According to Etemad Online, it is evident that decisions about the group and its strategy are made in secret darkrooms rather than transparent congresses. The group is also said to be a rebranded version of SHANA (Coalition Council of Revolutionary Forces), another name for the same group, once again with the code word "revolutionary" which means a group that aligns itself with Khamenei's radical anti-US stance.
However, as a tactic to reduce the significance of Ghalibaf's neo-con allies while giving him prominence as an individual, Haddad Adel is giving the leadership of the group to Ghalibaf, who knows that he has little chance if he remains just as the leader of his neo-con group.
Another conservative group, SHARIAN, the Strategic Network of Supporters of the Islamic Revolution, was established in March with the presence of Vice President Mohammad Mokhber and Roads Minister Mehrdad Bazrpash, firebrand anti-US cleric Mahmoud Nabavian and former hard-line lawmaker Hamid Rasai.
This group's members are known as younger conservatives. Meanwhile, a report in Khabar Online featured photos and a long list of the leading members of the Sharian group mainly to show that they are much younger. The website tagged the next parliamentary election in Iran as a competition between young and old conservatives.
The third group is the notoriously non-conformist Paydari which consists of relatively younger anti-US politicians who have so far defied any alliances in almost every election since 2009. They support a totalitarian Islamic government as opposed to an Islamic Republic which at least pretends to be adhering to some democratic principles. They hold the majority in the current parliament where they ratified reactionary laws against Internet freedom and women's rights.
The group's membership is not transparent. Many members do not openly show affiliation with the Paydari Party, and some others at times distance themselves from the party although it is public knowledge at the parliament that they belong to Paydari.
There are also smaller groups such as those who are affiliated with former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the supporters of former Speaker Ali Larijani but they are not big in numbers.
Other groups running for the Majles include traditional parties such as the extremely unpopular Islamic Coalition Party and the allies of former President Hassan Rouhani. The latter group is said to be operating under the leadership of former Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, a "moderate" politicians who is known for his remarks after the violent crackdown on the 2019 protests: "It is a lie that we only shot the protesters in the head. We shot some in the leg."
However, following the unresolved issues after the 2022 protests, there are every indication that the turnout in the March 2024 could be even less than the elections in 2020 and 2021, which were as low as 20 percent in some big cities.
Strikes have spread in Iran this week, with workers in more than 100 businesses and plants demanding better pay and work conditions, as Iran’s economy reels under US sanctions, government mismanagement and corruption.
Khamenei, who is the ultimate authority in deciding about an agreement with the United States over Iran’s nuclear program and end sanctions, emphasized the urgency of boosting employment and ending corruption.
However, under tough financial pressures, due to US oil export sanctions, Khamenei’s call for lowering unemployment remains more of a slogan. The same applies to corruption, when under his watch the Revolutionary Guard and religious foundations have monopolized the economy and overwhelming government control has led to the emergence of embezzlements and nepotism by officials.
“I have reached the conclusion that the cause of most [social] ills is unemployment. Addiction, corruption, crime, divorce, and the destruction of families are related to unemployment,” the 83-year-old autocrat said.
His enumeration of Iran’s deep social problems was also a rare admission by Khamenei, who usually praises the achievements of the Islamic Republic, ruled by him for 34 years of its 44-year existence.
While praising workers as the backbone of the country and insisting that they are loyal to the regime, his security forces Friday arrested at least nine labor and teachers activists.
Several teachers’ union activists were meeting at the home of their spokesman Mohammad Habibi when security agents stormed the residence and arrested them. They were taken to Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, where most political prisoners are kept.
Habibi himself was arrested April 5, just two months after he was released from a previous detention.
He has been persecuted for years, with agents storming his home in 2017 and confiscating his electronic devices. In recent years, he has been twice terminated from his teaching position under the pretext of “unjustified leaves of absence,” while he was in prison.
Khamenei railed against corruption in his speech, saying that if an official does not have the courage to fight corruption, he also does not have will to stand up to “foreign bullies.”
In another rare admission, he said some workers’ protests were justifiable. “Protests against late payment of wages, protests against wrong privatization…these are helpful in informing the regime and the government,” about the prevailing condition in the country.
Khamenei not only faces labor unrest, but also the wrath of many Iranians who see him as ultimately responsible for rising poverty and more restrictions on individual freedoms. Protesters who occupied the streets in 2022 often shouted harsh slogans and even insults at Khamenei.
His hardliner loyalists who control all three branches of government since 2021 have proven inept in making a dent in the economic crisis and the rising political opposition to the regime. Khamenei must know by now that his regime’s legitimacy has been badly damaged.
In an attempt to show that he is on the side of ordinary people, Khamenei said not paying wages on time “is oppression of workers.” Similarly denying them health insurance and job security are also acts of oppression.
He praised the workers for their loyalty to the regime, but reiterating his usual argument about a foreign conspiracy, he said that “foreign ill-wishers” tried to pit the workers against the regime, “but they stood against that, and this is very important.”