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London – “Al-Quds Al-Arabi”:
Soadd Al-Salihi, Middle East Eye correspondent in Iraq, said the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani a year ago in a US raid in Baghdad was at the heart of Iran’s strategy in Iraq. He said his successor, Ismail Qaani, according to various officials of the Iranian-backed militias, showed no desire to meet them and build relationships as his predecessor did.
His few visits were simply delivering messages or relaying orders to pro-Tehran groups. This was a shock, not just a disappointment. “To say that Iraqi Shiite leaders were disappointed in the man who replaced Qassem Soleimani is to underestimate the situation, they were dismayed,” he said. Soleimani knew the leaders one by one, and even those who worked under him, and had a close relationship with them for several decades. But the new leader of the Quds Force does not have these advantages, since he spent most of his time in Afghanistan, and Iraq is a new scenario for him, and he does not know Arabic like his predecessor, Soleimani, and above all, he does not seem interested in imitating the behavior of the previous commander.
Despite a turbulent year since the US raid on January 3, the few visits to Iraq and his meeting with militia leaders, his meetings, as described by a leader of a Shiite faction, resemble “an official officer interested in delivering messages and instructions. ” On top of all this, the new leader made no effort to break the ice with his new partners. His visits to Iraq were official and he soon met Iraqi leaders. A prominent Shiite politician said: “Soleimani had an appeal that cannot be ignored and he spoke Arabic and expanded his relations with most Iraqi politicians and leaders of armed factions and their groups or sects” and “is what brought him closer to all. and it built him a position and gave him influence over the leaders that he used in the policies he wanted. ” . The politician said he knew how to deal with both the enemy and the friend and “knew how to compromise with his opponents and get them to agree to a satisfactory solution.” Compared to that, Faqani does not know personalities like Ammar al-Hakim, and only his brother Mohsen. The comparison between trust in Soleimani and Rasmia Qaani became the talk of Iraqi officials.
At a time when Soleimani was arriving in Iraq suddenly, Qaani submitted a visa application weeks before his arrival. An adviser to the Iraqi prime minister said: “Soleimani did not admit the existence of a door. He jumped out the window. As for me, he likes to walk in the door when he allows it.”
The difference was clear, as Iran was unable to fill the void left by the departure of Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, who is considered the godfather of many armed militias. In Soleimani’s absence, groups like Asaib al-Haq are out of control and ignoring Qaani’s instructions. Meanwhile, Iran, which is suffering from sanctions, is nervously dealing with the financial crisis in Iraq, falling oil prices and the effects of COVID-19. The two events forced Tehran to review its regional policies, especially in Iraq, according to political, military and security officials in Iraq.
“The Iranians are currently reviewing all of Soleimani’s plans in Iraq,” said an Iraqi official with ties to Iranian intelligence. In the past, nobody could talk about negatives, but after his death, everyone started talking about negatives. “He added:” They found out that they had exploited Iraq to a great extent and depended on old allies who contributed to the depletion of their resources and made that Iran lost the popular Shiite base. The goal is to try a new approach and reorganize the situation inside Iraq to reduce losses. Iraqi political, military and security sources said that the Iranian authorities responsible for Iraq initiated a new policy a month ago. The effects of this policy are expected to show up in Iraqi political and security institutions. This seemed to be evident within the armed groups.
“The idea is to change the vision based on how the conflict between the United States and Iran is handled within Iraq and its relevance to local and regional developments,” said Mustafa Al-Kazemi’s adviser. Three factors play in the change of the Iranian vision in Iraq: the next American administration of Joseph Biden, the departure of groups loyal to the Shiite authority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and the parliamentary elections in Iraq. The adviser said: “The idea is not about the identity of the winner or the loser in this conflict, but about survival and the least losses.” “Iran cannot accept the loss of Iraq, nor the risk, and concede its national interests.” Therefore, concessions or backsliding is Iran’s natural response at this stage.
The report referred to the role of Iranian intelligence in the 1980s, which was active with groups opposed to Saddam Hussein inside and outside Iraq. A former combatant from the Badr Organization, which is one of the oldest armed groups opposing Saddam, said that the influence of Iranian intelligence declined after 2005 “when direct conflict broke out between Iran, on the one hand, and the military forces. Americans and British, on the other. ” Instead, the Quds Force, or the Foreign Operations Branch of the Revolutionary Guards, took on the task of pursuing Iranian interests in Iraq. The branch played a role in directing operations against US forces in Iraq and after 2014 against the “Islamic State” organization.
And the Quds Force has complete control over Iranian affairs in Iraq, and its influence is maximum. At the heart of this success is the tension that refuses to subside and a series of violations by militias that threaten to destabilize Iraq, which is trying to recover from the effects of ISIS. The popular crowd, which was formed from a Sistani fatwa, came under the leadership of Soleimani, who led it in the war against ISIS. After defeating the jihadists in 2017, Tehran was able to impose full control over the PMF, which ignored the orders of the Iraqi army that submitted to it. Under Iranian control, Hashd’s factions committed a series of violations against the civilian population and began to threaten the Iraqi government, people and foreign embassies. Sistani responded in Najaf with a call to reorganize the crowd and reduce Iranian influence. “The Iranians agreed to reorganize the PMF last year,” said a political official close to Iran. And they were studying proposals to sacrifice some of the groups associated with him. All this was stopped due to the massive demonstrations of 2019 and the assassination of Soleimani ”and“ the assassination of Soleimani did not prevent the project, but rather delayed its implementation ”. However, Soleimani’s death, Qaani’s failure to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps and a host of other pressing issues sparked the move that began in Tehran and led to the return of Iranian intelligence to Iraq. “It is no longer possible to take risks and lose more influence within Iraq and the region,” the political official said.
The Quds Force began to retreat and its assets and organizational capabilities in Iraq decline from the front lines in the political confrontation. As for Iran, politics should be at the center now, not weapons. Therefore, the confused messages from Tehran to Baghdad were an expression of the tension between the Revolutionary Guard and Iranian intelligence. Some believe that the intelligence services were calling for restraint in the confrontation with the United States, while the Quds Force was secretly urging it to increase its attacks. Nobody knows what is happening, but politicians in Iraq believe that the Iranian plan for their country has changed. The new vision is based on three axes: dismantle some armed groups or “eliminate outbreaks”, strengthen the Iraqi government and seek alternative sources to support its allies inside Iraq. Al-Kazemi’s adviser said Iran’s failure to recognize a power in Iraq over the past few years led them to exacerbate differences with armed groups within the Popular Mobilization Forces, leading to the state of chaos in the country. Therefore, the way to solve the problem of the militia and the PMF factions is to find a replacement for Muhandis, the co-founder of Kataib Hezbollah. After that, some organizations, such as the Khorasani Brigades, may disappear and others turn into gangs or merge with the stronger ones.
These militias share the state salary, privileges and equipment they receive, but their loyalties are different, as they follow Sistani in Najaf or Muqtada al-Sadr, or they follow Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran. Despite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s attempt when the ISIS offensive began in 2014 to establish a single authority for the Popular Mobilization Forces and subordinate it to the government, it was unsuccessful. In 2016, a law was passed to regulate the popular crowd and subject it to the same laws as the Iraqi security forces. Instead of controlling the militias, the 2016 law increased the chaos. Leaders outside the PMF enjoy the benefits that the PMF enjoys, including identities, vehicles, weapons, and headquarters that they use as cover for illegal operations and protect unregistered combatants in the crowd.
An official said some used Al-Hashd sources and fighters for personal purposes, implemented regional agendas and were involved in acts of violence against state institutions and diplomatic missions. Militants entering and leaving the crowd at the same time filled their coffers with drug money, took control of the homes of displaced civilians, blackmailed businesses and businessmen, and kidnapped Iraqis and foreigners for ransom. And when the demonstrations began in 2019, some of them started attacking, kidnapping and killing protesters and journalists. This prompted Iran to move and preserve the large armed forces within the crowd in exchange for cleaning its ranks of opportunistic elements and dissolving small factions. As for the unregistered groups in the crowd, two or three of them will be preserved under the umbrella of what is known as “armed resistance” and linked to the Quds Force. Kataib Hezbollah and Hezbollah al-Nujaba will form the nucleus of what are known as resistance forces.
The result is a two-headed dragon, the first organized and affiliated with the popular crowd and the second affiliated with the resistance. The implementation of the plan depends on the talks between the United States and Iran, so Ayatollah Khamenei ordered the militias in Iraq to stop targeting American interests and not give Donald Trump an excuse before leaving the White House. . Qaani visited Baghdad on December 23 and met with Al-Kazemi and President Barham Salih and sent them a message that Iran has no connection with the recent attacks on the US embassy compound in Baghdad.
The general claimed that Iran had no intention of responding to Soleimani’s assassination. His visit lasted only 24 hours and was followed by an Iraqi delegation to Tehran. The visit is believed to be related to Iraq’s attempt to gain Iranian support to control out-of-control groups. Iran and Iraq have an interest in organizing the armed factions due to the financial conditions they are going through and the US sanctions against Tehran.
