Iraq… a violated country

The Iranian regime is not only interfering in Iraq’s affairs, looting its wealth, exporting chaos, violence and terrorism, destroying its social fabric and culture, making an effort to distort its identity and affiliations and making it a thorn in the side of its Arab brethren, especially its Gulf brethren, it is doing all of this and more. By doing so, Iran is not concerned with the rights of its neighbours, the sovereignty of the state, or the security and stability of the region. It clearly justifies its actions with its belief that Iraq has become one of the Persian Empire’s suburbs, according to Yousefi, and that Iraq was Iran’s in the past, it is currently possessed by Iran and Iran has the right to enter Iraq without permission, according to the Iranian General Atallah Salehi. It is a well-known fact that Iran’s miserable agenda plans to continue to harm Iraq by all means and methods possible.

It is in this context that we can understand Iran’s treacherous aggression last Monday, when it pushed no less than 500,000 to 750,000 of its citizens through the Zurbatiya border crossing to storm it. This was done under the pretext of taking part in the annual Arbaeen religious ritual. They did not have any passports, entry visas, security or health checks, etc. This is not the first time this has happened, as similar incidents of the complete violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and dignity have occurred in the past. The Iranian government spokesperson tried to exonerate the government of its responsibility for the incident when he said that the Iranian government was unable to rein in these masses and lost control of them due to their keenness and longing to visit Karbala. He also said that the government will hold these individuals accountable once they return to Iran.

The best response to this pathetic statement is the Arabic saying: “Tell a sane person something insane, if they believe you, they are insane.” The Iranian government does not usually allow a gathering of over five people without prior permission, so how did these large masses gather without permission? Also, if we were to hypothetically accept his claim, then we would ask where are the Basij Forces and the militias associated with Khomeini, not to mention the ministries and security forces, the oppressive actions of which classify Iran’s government as a totalitarian regime?

Another question, would the Iranian government allow even one Iranian citizen, regardless of the reasons or arguments, to pass through an Iranian border crossing without a passport or visa allowing entry into the destination country? How would thousands be able to cross through the border crossing on the Iranian side if the government itself did not allow or facilitate this and help the masses rush the border?

Certainly none of these Iranians will return. They are asked to settle and spread amongst the Iraqis to pave the way to their citizenship soon, which had previously occurred. The areas of the Diyali Municipality, the Baghdad Belt areas, Samarra and Al-Nakheeb are the areas most likely to welcome and shelter them. Their task is to play the role of the fifth column recruited to serve Iran’s interests.

To further prove this, many eyewitnesses have reported that the overwhelming majority of those storming the border were young men capable of carrying weapons. Most believe that they belong to the Revolutionary Guard militias and Quds Force, and they had some ill individuals to disguise them and mislead others. I do not rule out the possibility of these sick individuals being infected with transmitted diseases such as AIDS. The Iranian Ministry of Health has recently warned against the spread of this disease and reported that two-thirds of those infected with the disease are unknown and are not registered. Therefore, they pose a transportable plague capable of mercilessly destroying the Iraqis, especially in the areas where these Iranians are likely to settle and disperse. I do not believe that any Iranian visits Iraq without carrying some amount of drugs, either for personal use or to sell, and this is another serious problem for the Iraqi people.

The position of Al-Abadi’s government, which only made a useless statement, is one of collusion. If the government wanted to, it could have taken pre-emptive or subsequent measures to reinforce the border crossing with enough military forces that are capable of deterring the storming of the border when it noticed these suspicious gatherings. There is no doubt that the government monitors the growth of the gatherings over the past few days. The government also could have, at a later time, worked on containing them and forcing them to return, but it did not do so. We did, however, see the government use excessive force against the Iraqis displaced from Anbar. Didn’t the government hold up thousands of Iraqis and refuses, until this day, to allow them to enter the country through the Bazibir Bridge, west of Baghdad, even those who are sick, elderly, disabled, women and children? Didn’t the government deprive hundreds of thousands of displaced families from their right to return to their municipalities and areas of residence after they were liberated from Daesh’s control?

In order to gloss over this blatant aggression, some mouths, who lost their sense of patriotism, dignity and pride, used a discourse attempting to draw attention from this aggression to other fabricated incidents. The media outlets funded by the poor and deprived Iranians’ budget deliberately promoted fabricated and false news regarding the deployment of 100,000 American, Arab and Turkish soldiers to Iraq, ignoring the facts on the ground occurring at the border crossing, where acts of destruction are still a threat.

I know that it is not only Iran that is violating the sovereignty of my country, but it is the largest and most dangerous threat. This is because the dimensions of its strategic plans are not limited to tactical or urgent reactions, which is the case with the others who have intervened. This, of course, is completely rejected. We know that its invasion of Iraq did not end in 2003, as today, its advisers and leaders in the Revolutionary Guard and Quds Force, led by Qasem Soleimani, are actively participating with their militias, out in the open. The incident at Zurbatiya only poses a double threat.

Iran is planning something greater and it is prepared for the coming days. Iran knows that it is impossible for the situation to remain the same and that this is an opportunity that will not repeat itself. The world is currently distracted with combatting terrorism and it is overlooking such dangerous violations of this nature, as reflected by its position on the Syrian tyrant. There is no hope in calling on the international community, neither those who are close nor those who are far. It seems that the Iraqi issue is postponed and the Iraqis have no other choice then to take full responsibility for changing Iraq, from the backyard of Iran to an Iraq that cuts off Iran’s hands in Iraq in order to stop its harming of the Iraqi people, as well as all the nations in the region.

Translated fromArabi21, 7 December 2015.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.