Iran's Iraq debacle

Amir Taheri:

IT had been billed as a "triumph" for the Islamic Re public and "a slap in the face of the American Great Satan." However, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's two-day state visit to Iraq last weekend showed the limits of Iranian influence in the newly liberated country.

Weeks of hard work by Iranian emissaries and pro-Iran elements in Iraq were supposed to ensure massive crowds thronging the streets of Baghdad and throwing flowers on the path of the visiting Iranian leader. Instead, no more than a handful of Iraqis turned up for the occasion. The numbers were so low that the state-owned TV channels in Iran decided not to use the footage at all.

Instead, much larger crowds gathered to protest Ahmadinejad's visit. In the Adhamiya district of Baghdad, several thousand poured into the streets with cries of "Iranian aggressor, go home!"

The visit's highlight was supposed to be a pilgrimage to Karbala and Najaf, the "holiest" of Shiite cities in Iraq. There, Ahmadinejad was supposed to become the first Iranian government leader since 1976 to pray at the mausoleums of Imam Hussein and Imam Ali.

In the end, however, the tour was canceled amid reports that Shiite pilgrims, including thousands from Iran, were planning to demonstrate against his presence at the "holy" cities.

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He had already been obliged to cancel a visit to Samarra, where the "Hidden Imam" disappeared in a well on 941 AD. Ahmadinejad had hoped to visit the ruins of the golden-domed Mausoleum of the Two Imams that was bombed by al Qaeda in 2005 and 2006 and announce a plan to rebuild the mausoleum.

The project is of special importance to Ahmadinejad, who claims to be in direct contact with the "Hidden Imam." (Last year he told his Cabinet that the "Hidden Imam" had accompanied him to the United Nations and filled the General Assembly's hall with a green light during his speech.)

But two days of demonstrations against Ahmadinejad's planned visit by the people of Samarra forced him to strike the city off his itinerary.

Nor did Ahmadinejad's presence in Baghdad go as smoothly as he'd hoped. A good part of the Iraqi political elite, including Cabinet ministers and members of the parliament, boycotted functions held in his honor. Tehran has branded the boycotters as "Saddamites and Sunnis in fact, a good number of Shiite politicians, including the leaders of the Fadila (Virtue) Party, also stayed away.

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Ahmadinejad had come to Iraq to show it was an Iranian playground. He ended up by showing that Iran's influence in Iraq is widely exaggerated.

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His anti Americanism was also a downer for the Iraqis who recognize how the US saved them from Saddam and pull them back from the brink of a civil war. It appears the Iraqis recognized him for the loud mouthed light weight he is.