Despite the Hype,
Ahmadinejad’s Iraq Visit
a Failure
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
By Alireza Jafarzadeh Behind the orchestrated pomp and pageantry during the visit to Baghdad last weekend by the Iranian ayatollahs’ president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was hard to miss the revulsion of Iraqis of all stripes. Adjectives like “historic” could not disguise the frustrating reality for Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs: outside of Iraqi political spheres dominated by Tehran surrogates, they are seen as enemies of a secure, non-sectarian and democratic Iraq.
The greeting parties, in the Baghdad airport and later in various government buildings, were who’s who of Tehran’s proxies in Iraq’s government. They “listened to Ahmadinejad,” according to McClatchy News Service, “without need of translation into Arabic, clearly comfortable hearing his Farsi.” Not surprising; for more than two decades, they were employed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Qods Force, and the Ministry of Intelligence. Learning Farsi was a job requirement.
Outside of the very limited segment of Baghdad where Ahmadinejad visited, there was outrage. A young Baghdad resident told the New York Times, “I think Ahmadinejad is the most criminal and bloody person in the world. This visit degrades Iraq’s dignity.” Up north in Kirkuk, where Arab tribes and political parties rallied against Ahmadinejad’s visit, a tribal leader told the Times, “How can we tolerate this? Today we live under the regime of the clerics. The Iranian revolution has been exported to Iraq.” An Iraqi businessman added, “His visit is intended to reassure his followers here,” but is “provoking and enraging” the rest of Iraq.
In the streets of Baghdad and other cities, the slogans on the walls and banners at protest rallies were as telling. Graffiti in Al Habibia neighborhood near Sadr city called Ahmadinejad “a champion of Islamic nuclear bomb who will defeat Israel,” but in other neighborhoods, like Al Saydia, Al Adel and Al Ghzalia, writing on the walls denounced Ahmadinejad as “a godfather of sectarian violence that divides Iraq.”
“Your mortars preceded your visit,” one placard read. Another read, “We condemn visit of terrorist and butcher Ahmadinejad to Iraq,” according to the Associated Press. “We have seen today a visit by [a president] of a state with hands tarnished by the blood of innocent people in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine,” the leader of the Iraqi Kirkuk Front declared during a protest rally.
The outrage was widespread among independent Iraqi political figures of various backgrounds. Abdul-Karim al-Samaraie, a lawmaker with the Iraqi Accordance Front, told Al-Jazeera TV that “We wish that there would be a commitment from the Iranian president personally to cease all kind of interventions in Iraq’s security and political affairs.” Muhammad al-Daini, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly denounced Ahmadinejad’s visit in an interview with the Al-Hurra TV channel, and called for the shutdown of the Iranian regime’s diplomatic offices in Iraq.
Lee ADDS: The media here in America were attempting to have us believe that Iran’s visit to Iraq was all ‘flowers and roses.’
