Announcing an expansion of trade from $12 billion to $20 billion, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani thumbed his nose at the United States. President Donald Trump cancelled former President Barack Obama’s Iranian Nuke Deal May 8, re-imposing punitive economic sanctions Nov. 1. Iran looks like it has the last laugh, when you consider that former President George W. Bush’s Iraq War, drove once bitter enemies into each other’s arms. Iran and Iraq, under the late dictator Saddam Hussein, fought a bitter 8-year-war [1980-1988], costing Iran and Iraq about 500,000 dead and $1.2 trillion is war costs. Once Iraq’s rebel Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr fled to Iran after Saddam was toppled April 10, 2003, it signaled close ties between Iraq and Iran. Trump considers Iran one of the Mideast’s chief sponsors of state terrorism, for funding the proxy war in Yemen.
Rouhani has practically stood on his head trying to defeat Trump’s new sanctions, getting the European Union to do anything possible to resist U.S. pressure. “Through bilateral efforts, we can raise the figure [for bilateral trade] to $20 billion in the near future,” said Rouhani, letting Trump know that he’s more allied with Iraq than the U.S. If Baghdad decides to buy more Iranian oil, they could be subject to U.S. sanctions, like any country violating U.S. sanctions to trade with Iran. “We held talks on trade in electricity, gas, petroleum products and activities . . . in the field of exploration and extraction,” Rouhani told the press with Iraqi President Barham Salih at his side. With Iraq and Iran’s economies struggling, forming an economic alliance helps both countries but slaps the U.S. in the face. Losing 4,487 U.S. soldiers battling Saddam, Trump isn’t happy about the new trade deal with Iran.
Salih wants new economic trade zones near the Iraq-Iran border, especially in Basra, Iraq’s second largest oil fields. “It will be important to create free trade zones at our shared border and to connect the two countries’ railways,” said Salih. U.S. officials can only wonder where they went wrong, sacrificing so much in the Iraq War, only to watch Iraq and Iran get closer than ever. With Saddam in power, Iraq and Iran were bitter enemies, despite both sharing Shiite populations. Saddam ran Iraq’s small Sunni minority, despite ruling from the secular Baathist Party, more aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “We will not forget your support for the Iraqi people in the fight against [Iraqi dictator] Saddam [Hussein]. Neither do we forget Iran’s stand in the recent fight against terrorism,” said Salih, an Iraqi Kurd whose brothers battled the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] in Iraq and Syria.
Embroiled in a costly proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised Iraq for battling terrorism on Iraqi soil. “The only way to counter plots [by Iraq’s enemies] is by strengthening the unity of all Iraqi groups, including Kurds, Arabs, Shiites and Sunnis,” Khamenei said on his Web site. With Iraq forming close ties with Iran, it’s difficult for Trump to apply any leverage on Iran, when, at every turn, Mideast, European and Asian countries seek any way to skirt Iranian sanctions. “Some government in the region and outside of it hold a deep grudge against Islam . . . and Iraq and interfere in Iraq’s internal affairs, and they must be strongly resisted,” said Khamenei, referring to the U.S. Iran continues to battle Saudi Arabia, raising the ethnic war between Sunnis and Shiites, rather that seeing Iran’s tactics as a Shiite v. Sunni conflict.
Despite fallout from the Khashoggi Affair, where Washington Post columnist Jama Khashoggi was murdered Oct. 2 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia share their ongoing battle with Iran. Saudi Arabia blames Iran for missile strikes on the Kingdom, fueled largely, by Houthi rebels from Iranian-supplied intermediate range missiles. Iran did everything possible to protect al-Sadr before his return to Iraq in 2007. Al-Sadr shares his hatred of the U.S. with the Ayahtollah, doing everything possible to end U.S. occupation of Iraq. While Obama pulled out of Iraq Dec. 15, 2011, the U.S. keeps about 5,500 troops in Iraq, despite the fact that al-Sadr’s 10,000-storng al-Mahdi militia remains hostile to the U.S. With greater Iraq-Iran cooperation, Iraq now becomes an enemy of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and U.S., all three seek to undermine growing Iranian Mideast influence .
Getting closer by the day, Iraq and Iran’s ties undermine the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, doing everything possible to stop Iranian-backed Houthi rebels from wreaking havoc on the Kingdom. While under the gun for the Khashoggi affair, no one understands Iran’s destructive influence more that Saudi Arabia. Now that Iran’s aligned with Iraq, the U.S. has a real disadvantage trying to contain Iran’s support for terrorism in the region. “We have exported more that $6 billion to Iraq in the past seven months and we could import goods for that amount but not food items,” said Yahya al-e-Eshaq, head of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce. Unable to restrain Iraq’s close ties to Tehran, the U.S finds itself scrambling to implement new Iranian sanctions. As long as Iran supplies arms-and-cash to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, they’ll continue to be at war with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
