T.C ISTANBUL KULTUR UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF GRADUATE STUDIES The Iranian Interventionist Policies in Iraq between 2003 to 2020 Master of Arts Thesis by Kais Abu-Kamer 1800004551 Department: International Relations Programme: International Relations Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Bora Bayraktar NOVEMBER 2021 T.C ISTANBUL KULTUR UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF GRADUATE STUDEIS The Iranian Interventionist Policies in Iraq between 2003 to 2020 Master of Arts Thesis by Kais Abu-Kamer 1800004551 Department: International Relations Programme: International Relations Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Bora Bayraktar Members of Examining Committee: Prof. Dr. İbrahim Mensur Akgün Asst. Prof. Dr. Şuay Nilay Açıkalın (Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi) Substitute Members: Asst. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Cemal Ertürk Asst. Prof. Dr. Muzaffer Şenel (Ankara Medipol Üniversitesi) NOVEMBER 2021 I Enstitüsü : Lisansüstü Eğitim Enstitüsü Dalı : Uluslararası İlişkiler Programı : Uluslararası İlişkiler Tez Danışmanı : Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Bora Bayraktar Tez Türü ve Tarihi : Yüksek Lisans – Haziran 2021 KISA ÖZET Amerika'nın Irak'ı işgalinden neredeyse yirmi yıl sonra, ülke hala siyasi kargaşa içinde. Etnik ve mezhepsel bölünme, Irak'ı dış müdahale ve manipülasyona açtı. Komşu ülkeler, diğer bölgesel ve siyasi aktörler Irak'ın günlük meselelerinde bile rol oynuyor. Bu nedenle Irak'taki siyasi ortamı anlamak zor görünüyor. 1988'deki sekiz yıl süren İran-Irak savaşının İran'ın kararlı bir rakibi olduğunu kanıtlamasının ardından, Irak 2003'teki ABD işgalinin ardından kademeli olarak İran'ın doğrudan etkisi altına girdi Bu araştırma, İran dış politikasını ve İran'ın ABD işgalinin ardından Irak üzerinde neredeyse tam kontrol sağlamak için kullandığı araçları incelemektedir. II University : Istanbul Kültür University Institute : Institute of Graduate Studies Department : International Relations Programme : International Relations Supervisor : Asst. Prof. Dr. Bora Bayraktar Degree awarded and Date : Master of Arts – October 2021 Abstract Almost twenty years after the American invasion to Iraq, the country is still in political turmoil. Ethnic and sectarian division opened Iraq to foreign intervention and manipulation. Neighboring countries, other regional and political actors play role in even Iraqi daily affairs. For this reason, the political scene in Iraq seems to be difficult to understand. After the eight year long Iran-Iraq war in 1988 proved a resolved competitor of Iran, Iraq gradually came under the direct influence of Iran, following the US invasion in 2003. This research examines the Iranian foreign policy and the tools Iran had utilized to achieve near complete control over Iraq in the aftermath of the US invasion. III Table of Contents List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................ V Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 Research Questions ............................................................................................. 4 Hypotheses .......................................................................................................... 4 Methodology ........................................................................................................ 4 Chapter one ......................................................................................................... 6 1. Foreign Policy making in Iran ......................................................................... 6 1.1. Foreign Policy Objectives vs. Rhetoric ................................................................ 9 1.2. Foreign Policy-Making institutions ................................................................... 10 1.2.1. The Power Centers of Iran ................................................................................................. 10 1.2.2. The Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist .............................................................................. 12 1.2.3. The Leadership of the Supreme Guide .............................................................................. 13 1.2.4. The Iranian Presidency ...................................................................................................... 15 1.2.5. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps IRGC .................................................................... 17 1.3. Principles of foreign policy making in Iran: ...................................................... 19 1.3.1. National Identity ................................................................................................................ 19 1.3.2. Nationalism ....................................................................................................................... 20 1.3.3. Shiism ................................................................................................................................ 23 1.3.4. Islamic Revolution ............................................................................................................. 27 1.3.5. Iran Geopolitical Concerns ................................................................................................ 30 Chapter Two ...................................................................................................... 33 2.1. The Iraq War and the Iranian Reaction (Expansionist Aspirations) ................. 33 2.1.1. Risks & Opportunities Arising from the US Invasion ....................................................... 34 2.2. The Political Scene in Iraq since 2003 ............................................................... 35 2.3. Iranian Influence .............................................................................................. 37 Chapter Three ................................................................................................... 42 3.1. Political Intervention after the American Invasion ........................................... 42 3.2. The Iranian Political Tools in Iraq .................................................................... 47 3.2.1. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq ................................................................................ 49 3.2.2. The Iraqi Daawa Party ....................................................................................................... 50 3.2.3. The Sadrist movement ....................................................................................................... 50 3.3. Splits in Political Factions ................................................................................. 51 3.4. Cases of Critical Intervention ........................................................................... 51 3.4.1. Case 1: Circumventing the Iraqi Constitution to appoint a favorable premier .................. 52 3.4.2. Case 2: Amending the Iraqi Constitution .......................................................................... 52 3.4.3. Case 3: Pro-Iranian Militias ............................................................................................... 53 IV 3.4.4. Case 4: The Delegitimization of Sunni Representation ..................................................... 54 Chapter Four .................................................................................................... 55 4.1. Socio-Judiciary Intervention ............................................................................. 55 4.2. The Iraqi Constitution ...................................................................................... 56 Chapter Five ..................................................................................................... 60 5.1. The pro-Iranian Militias ................................................................................... 60 5.1.1. The Mahdi Army ............................................................................................................... 62 5.1.2. Asaib Ahl al-Haq ............................................................................................................... 63 5.1.3. The Badr Organization ...................................................................................................... 63 5.1.4. Kataib Hezbollah ............................................................................................................... 64 5.1.5. Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) .................................................................................. 65 5.2. The Role of the Militias ..................................................................................... 66 Chapter Six ....................................................................................................... 70 6.1. The Economic Intervention ............................................................................... 70 6.2. Exploiting Corruption in Iraq ........................................................................... 73 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 75 Recommendation ............................................................................................... 77 Future Study ..................................................................................................... 78 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 78 V List of Abbreviations The following abbreviations have been used in the thesis BBC British Broadcasting Corporation DCAF Democratic Control of Armed Forces DNI Directorate of National Intelligence of the US DW Deutsche Welle EIA Energy Information Administration FPA Foreign Policy Analysis GICJ Geneva International Center of Justice IRGC Islamic Guards Corps Revolution ISCI Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Levant KDP Kurdistan Democratic Party KUP Kurdistan Union Party OCHA Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs/UN PMF Popular Mobilization forces PUK Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party UN United Nations 1 Introduction Iraq, as a state, had been one of the first countries to be formed after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the twenties of the past century. Despite being recognized early on by Iran, the relations among the two countries had fluctuated between periods of political cooperation and periods of escalated tensions. This relationship marred by competition and confrontation throughout the subsequent decades. The competitiveness between the two neighbors had taken a new dimension after the 1958 coup d'état in Iraq, when the old monarchy had been replaced by a socialist republic. As expected in Cold War years, the new Iraqi regime had strengthened its relationships with the Soviet Union, therefore increasing the tensions with neighboring Iran, a monarchy dependent on its relations with the United States. The strained relations between Iraq and Iran, although heightened by the cold war, never reached the point of armed conflict during 1970s. All this changed with the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, where the Pahlavi monarchy had been replaced by an Islamic republic putting Ayatollah Khomeini at the helm. Less than a year later, the longest war of the century erupted between the two, the Iran-Iraq war (1980 - 1988), an eight-year war with a casualty toll of more than one million between soldiers and civilians. Regardless of the true reasons of the conflict, the Iranian propaganda during the war revolved around exporting the principles of its Islamic revolution to Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s secular regime. After the war ended with Iran’s failure to achieve its declared goals, the Iranians began to eye international political developments for a chance to advance their agenda. These Iranian aspirations saw an opportunity to materialize with the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the execution of Saddam Hussein shortly after. Some might assume that the Iranian intervention in the weak and defeated Iraq after 2003 had been with the intention of establishing an Islamic state similar to the Iranian model, as one would expect from countries led by revolutionary ideologies such as Iran. But the reality was far from that. The Iranian foreign policy in Iraq had been pragmatic in all aspects, with well thought actions to achieve premeditated goals. Instead of helping to mimic the Iranian model in Iraq, Iran supported a parliamentary 2 government with a constitution that grants special perks to parties loyal to Iran. At the same time, the Iranian regime emboldened, if not directly established, a wide array of political and militant organizations loyal first and foremost to Iran, to where the Iranian leadership had become the most influential player in Iraqi affairs. To achieve this influential position, Iran followed a concerted plan to consolidate and re-establish its power in Iraq through a plethora of tools. To fulfill its expansionist aspirations in Iraq, the Iranian regime had adopted four essential tools (i.e., political, socio-judicial, military and economic) to subjugate the Iraqi state. Those tools were directed not only to influence the Iraqi decision-making process to Iran’s favor, but also to render the whole of Iraq as a clientele state whose main function is to provide all sorts of support to the Iranian state. Within the political tool, the Iranian regime relied on different religio-political institutions to implement its interventionist policies of pro-Iranian agendas, and in similar vein, the military tool was implemented in more or less the same fashion. The Iranian regime has created different political institutions and military entities in Iraq, all of which are promoters of pro-Iranian agendas, in order to divide the Iraqi state into spheres of influence under these political institutions or military entities, and at the same time, their allegiance remains only to the Iranian state. With divided pro-Iranian political or military entities, the Iranian regime would ensure the upper hand over Iraq and would be safely assured, that these pro-Iranian entities are not going to collude against the Iranian superiority. The third tool, the socio-judicial tool, seems to characterize the end result of the Iranian political and military influence. As a result of the Iranian political and military infiltration, the Iranians had successfully managed to rewrite the Iraqi constitution in a way as to conform with the Iranian interest, and to prolong its influence on societal and electoral grounds. The fourth and final tool, the economic tool, came to complement the former tools, to where it helped Iran tighten its control over the Iraqi economy, to benefit economically from its influence, and more importantly, to seek refuge from the international sanctions against Iran. Collectively, the four tools that Iran had implemented in Iraq had proven to be successful and had enabled Iran to subjugate the Iraqi state and the Iraqi people, and render Iraq, more or less, as an Iranian province. On a final note, while many accuse Iran of instigating conflicts within Iraq, the truth is that Iran has no interest in pushing Iraq over the edge or inflaming the internal conflicts 3 to the point where it loses control of the situation. Iran has a vested interest in keeping Iraq as a weak state with no hope of it becoming the regional power it once was. All while keeping the United States, Iran’s main adversary in the region, busy with the deteriorating Iraqi affairs and in constant need of Iran’s help to contain the situation. In essence, the crisis in Iraq hinders the Americans ability to impede the Iranian nuclear and regional ambitions. In the following discussion, I divided the thesis into six chapters, the first chapter evaluates the mechanics of Iranian foreign policy formation by analyzing the governmental institutions and power centers that collectively constitute the Iranian political system and contribute, to different degrees, in the foreign policy making process, in addition to inspecting the factors that comprise the Iranian national identity and their effect on the Iranian foreign policy. The second chapter sheds light on the Iraqi political scene after the US invasion in 2003, examining the perils threatening Iraq and its stability. The four remaining chapters were retained to expand on the Iranian interventionist tools by dedicating a chapter to each tool. 4 Research Questions This research is intended to examine the Iranian interventionist policies in Iraq right after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, and up to the current moment. To understand and analyze these interventionist policies, two research questions have been proposed. 1. What is the nature of the Iranian interventionist policies with respect to the Iranian national identity and how such identity is instilled into the structure of power centers in post-revolution Iran? 2. What are the Iranian interventionist tools in Iraq in terms of political influence, military dominance and economic control? Hypotheses There are two hypotheses that direct this investigation. They are as follows: 1. The Iranian interventionist policies in Iraq are somehow related to the Iranian national identity of Shiism and Iranianism patriotism. 2. The Iranian interventionist policies in Iraq rely on political, military and economic tools. Methodology The research will adopt the framework of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) to understand and analyze the Iranian interventionist policies in Iraq from 2003 till 2020. FPA is a theoretical framework that perceives political analysis through the distribution of power centers within particular countries. Based on the principle that critical decision- makings are vested into different governmental institutions, FPA targets the governmental institutions that are responsible for foreign policy decision-making within the countries concerned (OĞUZLU, 2018, pp. 103-118). FPA seems to be a reasonable theoretical approach to employ in this research to understand the Iranian 5 foreign policy towards Iraq. There are good reasons to adopt this approach rather than others. First, the Iranian identity is woven across the Iranian ethnicity and Shiism, both of which fall under the investigation of FPA. Shiism and Iranianism, the two components of the Iranian identity, are playing an important role in Iranian foreign policy in the region and in Iraq in particular. Second, Iran’s internal political structure is divided across different institutions and its foreign policies are determined within these institutions. For example, the revolutionary guards, the supreme leadership, and the presidency are three crucial institutions that determine the foreign policy of Iran. FPA will be used to highlight these power centers of Iran, examine the political weight of each individual institution and evaluate the interactions and dynamics of these institutions and their implications in the Iranian foreign policy in Iraq. To analyze the Iranian foreign policy towards Iraq, I, using FPA, will divide the discussion across two major sections: Iranian Identity and Iranian centres of power. Within the Iranian Identity, discussions will proceed to explain how the Iranian identity is a combination of two elements and their consequences on the Iranian foreign policy, Shiism and Iranianism, and how each one of these elements supports and complements the other. Within the Iranian centers of power, the researcher is going to explain how the decision-making process is carried out among these institutions (Karimifard, 2011, pp. 239-241), and how they are integrated and represented into the Iranian foreign policy towards Iraq. The researcher will examine the Iranian influence through the three major power centers, in order to be able to investigate the sectarian, political, economic, and military tools that were used to subjugate Iraq. 6 Chapter one 1. Foreign Policy making in Iran The Iranian foreign policy seems to be contradictory and unintelligible to the inexperienced observer, which leaves many to wonder about the nature of the Iranian Foreign policy, is it ideological or is it pragmatic? According to Hadžikadunić, there are many Western scholars who consider the Iranian foreign policies as incomprehensible and unfathomable given the complexity of the decision-making process and the paradoxicality of the Iranian political activities (Hadžikadunić, 2014, p. 4). Others, especially in the US, perceive the Iranian foreign policy as being deeply influenced by an aggressive ideological agenda which could destabilize the peace and the security of the world (Elizabeth C. Boyer, May 2020, p. 1). Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, the consecutive American administrations and policy makers began to pay special attention to the Iranian growing influence and its potential in challenging the status quo in the region. A report submitted by the Directorate of National Intelligence of the US (DNI), cautioned that the Iranian foreign activities in the next few years will be aggressive and threatening to American interests (Coats, 2019, pp. 29-30) and other allies in the region. The report reads “Iran’s regional ambitions and improved military capabilities almost certainly will threaten US interests in the coming years, driven by Tehran’s perception of increasing US, Saudi, and Israel’s influence in the region, as well as continuing border insecurity, and the influence of hardliners” (Katzman,2019, pp.1). The Iranian foreign policies towards the world and the region appears at best to be conflictual and contradictory in terms of the proclaimed official statements versus the actual political behaviors which began to be clearly observable during the Khatami’s 7 presidency in 1997 onwards (Katzman, 2019, p. 1). The statements and positions of some Iranian officials can sometimes carry signals of threat and intimidation to many Middle Eastern and Western countries. On the other hand, one can find other Iranian officials calling for cooperation and collaboration between the countries of the region and between Iran and the Western world, to achieve peace and development for all parties (Ansari and Tabriz, 2016, p. 3). For example, when the Iranian president had called for the Dialogue of Civilization initiative which was directed towards western countries and was warmly welcomed by the west, the Supreme Guide of the Iranian Republic, Ali Khamenei, continued to promote and propagate antagonistic and belligerent sentiments towards the West and the Americans. This contradictory behavior of Iran is heightened when examining its policy in Iraq. As Iran’s proclaimed policy, the United States stands as the greatest evil to the Muslim world and plays a destabilizing factor in the Middle East, including Iran itself. However, despite these allegations of espousing Muslim solidarity and the ostensible animosity towards the Americans, such confessed policy of ‘Islamic Idealism’ did not prevent Iran from colluding and collaborating with the Americans during the occupation of another Muslim country, Iraq in 2003 (Gomari-Luksch, 2018, pp. 13-14). The traces of such paradoxical behavior dates back to the 1980s, when the incident of Iran-Contra occurred, which attracted the attention of many political observers. During the Iran-Iraq war between 1980-1988, Iran secretly imported weapons from the United State through Israel, which mounted up to 80% of the Iranian imported arms in the first two years of the war (Smith, 2016, p. 28). Moreover, despite the continuous belligerent rhetoric against Israel and its illegitimacy as a state in the Middle East, Iran imported weapons directly from Israel at the end of the first year of the war which mounted up to 28 million USD (Central Intelligence Agency, 1982, pp. 18–19). The conflictual aspects of the Iranian foreign policies, as represented between the proclaimed anti-western sentiments and Islamic solidarity on one hand, and the actual collusion and collaboration with the Americans and the Israelis on the other, are not only reflected in its policies towards Iraq, but also, they are apparent in its policies towards other neighboring countries. 8 During the Russian-Chechen war in 1999 Iran defied conventional wisdom. Instead of siding with and supporting the Chechens who are all Muslims, Iran continued to strengthen its relations with Russia both economically and politically (Ray Takeyh, 2012, p. 57) Despite the fact that the Iranian revolutionary constitution adopts the defending of oppressed Muslims regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, the death toll of the Muslim Chechens kept increasing without raising any serious concerns from the Islamic Republic. It might be understandable that establishing good relations with the Russians is a priority to the Iranian government but voicing criticism or condemnation of the Russian ferocious crimes against Chechen Muslims would not contaminate the relationship. But, then again, Iran did not do that either. Furthermore, Iran dismissed the matter as an internal issue of the Russian Federation, under the excuse that Iran refuses to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries (Ray Takeyh, 2012, p. 58). Additionally, more or less the same paradox recurs. In 1990, in the South Caucasus region, Armenia, a state of Christian majority, occupied around 20% of Azerbaijan, a state of 80% of Shia Muslims. If we take into consideration the ideology of the Iranian state as belonging to the Shiite Islamic jurisprudence and the large Azerbaijani minority in Iran, which exceeds 15% of the population of Iran, the expected conclusion is that Iran will side with Azerbaijan. However, the surprising truth was that Iran took a neutral position that favored Armenia (Cornell, 2001, p. 308). Even in the recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, Iran had taken a position that was not far from its previous stance in the 1990 war. Contrary to its pro-Islamic rhetoric and propaganda, the Iranians’ consistency of supporting Armenia, a Christian majority country, against a more likely conventional ally like Azerbaijan, is quite intriguing if not incomprehensible even among top Shiite officials (Murat Sofuoglu, 2020). Such a position stands with stark violations of the Iranian revolutionary ideology and the Iranian constitution, which in principle, should support the oppressed Muslims wherever they are. However, the answer to this contradiction may be hinted at in a conversation that occurred between Sbuhi Al-Tufayli, the former Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, about the reason for Tehran's stance and its support for Armenia. The Iranian minister indicated that 9 Armenia’s victory would stand as a barrier in the face of “Turkey’s expansionist aspirations” in the South Caucasus region (Arabic Post Report, 2020). The Iranian foreign policies are claimed to be anti-colonialist and anti-hegemonic of the Western powers. Those policies are claimed to be encapsulated into the pro-Islamic rhetoric and propaganda after the 1979 revolution, whose main function was to support the victims of the imperialist powers and their allies. Nonetheless, apart from these sentiments and their potential attraction and appeal among many ordinary Muslims and other sympathizers, the foreign policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran seem to be inconsistent and largely contradictory to its actual political behavior in the Arab region, especially in Iraq after 2003. The difference between what is said and what is done is incomprehensible, which rendered some scholars, in describing the Iranian foreign policy, to call it a complex of idealism and pragmatic policy at best to the extent which could lead to contradictions (Luksch, 2018, p. 13). Others perceive the Iranian foreign policy as purely pragmatic with the primary principles of the Islamic revolution functioning as a disguise for its expansionist aspirations in the region (El Berni, 2018, p. 115). For example, the famous scholar of Iranian foreign policy Trita Parsi stated "Increasingly it was becoming clear that Iran’s rhetoric against Israel did not match its actual policy. At the same time that Iran was secretly dealing with the government of Israel" (Trita Parsi, 2007, p. 95). 1.1. Foreign Policy Objectives vs. Rhetoric The researcher is attempting to explore the motives behind the Iranian foreign policy and to expose the huge gap between the Iranian rhetorical speech and the actual policies implemented by Iran towards its neighbors. To achieve this, the researcher has to consider the rhetorical speech as merely a part or a tool of the Iranian foreign policy, and not as the philosophy behind the foreign policy as is normally the case with other countries. One arrives at this conclusion from studying the actual foreign policies undertaken by Iran when compared to the propaganda broadcasted by its political elite. On the one hand, the Iranian political system advocates for an Islamic revolutionary ideology such as the brotherhood between all Muslims and how Muslims should stand 10 against international imperialism, especially the United States, and for the deposing of secular regimes in countries with predominant Muslim populations. On the other hand, the actions of the Iranian foreign policy differ substantially from this rhetoric to the point that the rhetoric itself becomes just a part of the foreign policy process. For example, when Iran was trying to depose Saddam Hussein and get rid of his secular regime, it was buying American armaments to fuel its war against Iraq (1980-1988). During the same time period, Iran established a strategic relationship with al-Assad's regime in Syria, a regime that is secular and adopts the same Baath social ideology as its Iraqi counterpart (John F. Devlin, 1991, pp. 1397-1407). From this and many other examples which will be elaborated upon in the following chapters, the researcher notices that Iran's strategic and geopolitical interests are the true motives behind its adopted foreign policies. Therefore, the true goals of the Iranian foreign policies are not to live up to Iran’s revolutionary propaganda, but to protect the Iranian regime and guarantee its continuance, to maintain Iran as a regional power and as a unified country, to achieve economic prosperity for the Iranian state and to secure Iran’s dominance on the region’s natural resources including the precious oil (El Berni, 2018, pp. 118-125). 1.2. Foreign Policy-Making institutions There are four main foreign policy-making institutions in Iran. They are the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, the Leadership of the Supreme Guide, the Iranian Presidency, and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, IRGC. All of these religious, political, and military institutions coordinate their efforts and collaborations to decide about the country’s foreign policy. In the following, each one of these institutions is discussed, and its role in relation with the other decision-making institutions is explained. 1.2.1. The Power Centers of Iran After the Islamic revolution, the power centres of Iran had changed in favour of the religious establishments, as the Iranian Shiite theocracy had been strengthened and 11 empowered. Moving from dictatorial tyranny of superficially implemented secularism towards the Shiite theocracy of Velayet-i-Faqih, the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, the patriotism of the Iranians was to be unfolded not only into the Iranian socio- political lives but also reflected into the Iranian foreign policies. Among the changes that the Iranian revolution had brought into the political scene was the complex structure of power centres which tipped the balance of power in favour of the religious establishments and consolidated their influence (Tuğba Bayar, 2019, pp. 41-42). According to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic, there are nine political institutions that share power and decision-making processes in Iran (Kurun, 2017, p. 119). These institutions are as follows: (1) the Assembly of Experts, (2) the Iranian Parliament, (3) the Supreme Leadership, (4) the Guardian Council, (5) the Presidency, (6) the Council of Ministers, (7) the Expediency Council, (8) the Judiciary Institution, (9) the Revolutionary Guards. The missions and functions of these power institutions will be briefly discussed with more emphasis given to the Supreme Leadership, Presidency, and the Revolutionary Guards, due to their direct involvement in shaping and determining the foreign policies of the Iranian state. The members of the Assembly of Experts are expected to hold a high Shiite religious rank, not less than a mujtahid or an ayatollah elected by the people, and the most important authority of this assembly is to choose the supreme leader of the republic (Iranian Constitution, Article 107). The function of the Iranian Parliament, which is directly elected by the people, is to enact laws and approve the budget (Iranian Constitution, Articles 65, 71). The Supreme Leadership is considered the highest political and religious authority in the Iranian state (Iranian Constitution, Articles 107, 110, 5). The Guardian Council has the right to observe the presidency, the Assembly of Experts, and the parliamentary elections, and has the power to interpret the constitution, and six of its twelve members are appointed by the Supreme Leader of the Republic (Iranian Constitution, Articles 98, 99, 91-1). The presidency or the President of the Republic is the highest political authority who is directly elected by the people and is held accountable by the Supreme Leader of the Republic (Iranian Constitution, Articles 134, 133, 119, 122). Sixth, the council of the Ministers is headed by the Iranian President and is appointed by him with the approval of Parliament (Iranian Constitution, Article 133). Seventh, the main function of the Expediency 12 Council is to resolve the disagreement between the Parliament and the Guardian Council. Eighth, the Judiciary institution whose head is directly appointed by the Supreme Leader is responsible to propose the remaining six names of members of the Guardian Council (Iranian Constitution, Articles 91, 110-6B). Ninth, the Revolutionary Guards, which are supervised by the Supreme Leader, are tasked with protecting the political system (Iranian constitution, Articles 150, 110-7-6). As briefly discussed, the distribution of power in the Iranian political system appears to bear traces of modernity and theocracy that are combined together in a way to reflect the Iranian national identity. The combinatory mixture of parliamentary elections with the theocracy of the Supreme Leadership is at best unique and contradictory and has no close resemblance in Western democracies nor in the Middle Eastern dictatorships. It integrates presidential and parliamentary democracies with dictatorial theocracy, which leaves observers to wonder why the Iranian political system is structured the way it was. The answer may not be satisfactory. However, the Iranian national identity might hold the answer for this puzzling question. The development of the Iranian national identity and the components that were added to it might provide a clue towards understanding the Iranian political system. Iranian Shiism, Iranism and colonial- phobia might account for the complexity, and often conflictual nature, of the Iranian political system and the interactions between the Iranian power institutions. In the following discussion, great emphasis will be directed towards three important institutions of the Iranian political system, namely, Supreme Leadership, the Presidency, and the Revolutionary Guards, for they are believed to have the most effective role in implementing the Iranian foreign policies. 1.2.2. The Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist The crucial point of conflict between Shiism and Sunnism is over the system of ruling that each one adopts; that is, the Sunni Caliphate does not require the ruler to be a descendant of Ali (the Prophet’s cousin) while the Shiite do. In the Shiite theology, the leader of the Islamic world must solely be assigned and attributed to the descendents of the house of Imam Ali and his offspring, the twelve imams. As a 13 consequence, the Shiite theologians contend that the Sunnis had unjustly took over the rule from the house of Ali and his grandsons since the Prophet had assigned Ali as his leader of the Islamic world, and as a consequence, the rightly guided Caliphate is always accused of having taken this right from the Shiites (Cemil Hakyemez, 2020, p. 8). Therefore, the whole jurisprudence of the Shiite theology is concerned to restore the leadership of the Islamic rule to the House of Ali, which is presumed to be of Iranian blood, from the Islamic Arabic world. The system of the Velayet-i-Faqih is a political system to actualize the restoration of the Shiite supremacy to the Islamic world including the Arabic Muslim countries, whether they are Sunni or Shiite states (Hakyemez, 2020, p. 10). Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution, had developed the idea of the Velayet-i-Faqih, by which the Islamic jurist or the Faqih functions as or represents the hidden Imam who had gone missing. The Twelver Imam, Muhamad Hasan Al-Mahdi who is supposed to provide the necessary jurisprudence and guide the Shiite population, had gone missing. Henceforth, the guardianship of the Islamic jurist can provide a plausible solution where the Faqih or the jurist can function as a deputy Imam who can assume the religious responsibilities, social and political recommendations, and provide the necessary guidance to the people. The Guide or the Supreme Leader, as it is always called in political and religious circles, is considered as the spiritual leader not only for the Iranian Shiites, or other Shiites of different backgrounds, but is assumed to be the leader of the whole Islamic world (Hakyemez, 2020, pp. 9-10). 1.2.3. The Leadership of the Supreme Guide The position of the Supreme Leader of the Iranian Republic is considered the highest political position due to the political powers and spiritual nature that are attributed to the holder of this position. Since the establishment of the Islamic republic of Iran, only Ayatollah Khomeini (1979 - 1989) and Ali Khamenei (1989 - present) have assumed this position. The Supreme Leadership is the institution that is responsible for the implementation of the Guardian of the Islamic Jurist (Velayet-i-Faqih) (Iranian Constitution, Article 5). The preamble to the Iranian constitution states “the constitution prepares the background for the actualization of leadership by a qualified 14 jurisprudent who is recognized as the leader…” (Iranian Constitution, preamble). According to the theory of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, the Supreme Leader or the Guide is the sole representative of the hidden Imam and assumes his responsibilities in social, religious, political and economic matters rather than being assigned to professionals or social scientists (Iranian Constitution, Article 5). The Guide can be considered as a political leader with spiritual nature which is to be believed and followed by all the Shiites in the world; however, the currency and propagation of such arguments were not so dominant among Arab Shiites during Khomeini's time. The Iranian constitution, in particular Article 110, gives the Supreme Leader, or the Guide, the responsibilities to lay down the country’s internal and external policies, and vests him a veto power in all aspects of the state’s institutions. For example, the Guide can appoint or dismiss the leaders of the armed forces, the leaders of the Revolutionary Guards, the incumbents of the security services, the intelligence services, the Judiciary, the media, and other state officials. Moreover, among the assigned responsibilities to the Supreme Leader is to approve the appointment of the elected president or to reduce his power (Iranian Constitution, Article 110). For example, the Supreme Leader had disagreed with the President of the Republic, Ahmadinejad, over the appointment of the Minister of Intelligence, and ordered the President to replace the Minister with his nominee or resign (al-Smadi, 2015). Within these responsibilities, the Supreme Leader has the upper hand over the internal and external policies as well as the Council of Ministers, which might indicate that the powers of the president are superficial or at least limited and restricted. The Supreme Leader is elected by the Assembly of Experts whose members are elected by the Iranian people (Iranian Constitution, Article 107); nonetheless, he is automatically considered to be assuming the leadership of the Islamic world (Iranian Constitution, Article 109-B), as if the Iranian state is the sole mouthpiece of all Muslims in the world. Such assumption provides the Iranian state the right to be the centre of the Islamic world and the reference point of authority over all Muslims in the world (Wastnidge, 2019, pp. 605-625). A point of consideration should be clarified here. Assuming the leadership of the Islamic world, both Shiites and Sunnis, the Iranian state conflates religiosity and theocracies on one hand with ethnicity and 15 nationality on the other. The Iranian national interests which are covertly articulated through religious sentiments and rhetoric do not usually conform with, or even contradict, other neighbouring states of similar sects, i.e., Iraq, as will be shown below. The statements issued by the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, on issues of foreign affairs, especially towards Iraq, should be cautiously contemplated given his former political expertise. Ali Khamenei was the one responsible for the coordination and cooperation with the Iraqi opposition during the Iran-Iraq war (1980 - 1988), which included the process of incorporating these opposition forces into the ranks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, while concurrently raising the cooperation level with Syrian secular regime. For example, before he became the Supreme Leader, Khamenei visited Syria in 1982 and met with senior Iraqi opposition figures, who escaped earlier to reside in Syria, and succeeded in bringing a large number of them into Iran to join the fight against the Iraqi army (Rezaei, 2019, pp. 113-114). 1.2.4. The Iranian Presidency The post of President, who is only elected for only two consecutive terms, is the highest position after the Supreme Leader in the Iranian Republic. The constitution stipulates that in order to qualify for the Iranian presidency the candidate should not only hold the Iranian nationality, but should also be a descendant of Iranian origins, and that he has to be a believer in the Twelver Shiite sect (Iranian Constitution. Articles 113, 114, 115). This is stark evidence on how the Iranian national identity is embedded in sectarianism. The internal and external policies that the Iranian President and his ministers will adopt must be aimed at achieving the general policies of the Supreme Leader, and the president shall be accountable to the Supreme Leader as to whether he succeeds or fails in achieving the general policies of the leadership, as inspired by the Iranian constitution (Iranian Constitution, Articles 110-1,122). During the tenure of Ayatollah Khomeini as the Supreme leader, the president of the republic, Hassan Bani Sadr, was not given any considerable political space, to the point that the Supreme Leader had finally removed him from the presidency. However, the president is not always deprived of presidential powers and privileges. After the death of Ayatollah Khomeini and the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranian president was 16 given more political space and flexibility to face the social and economic challenges (Jones, 2009, p. 8), especially with regards to improving the relationship with the West (Knøster, 2019, pp. 17-18). This culminated during the Rouhani presidency, whose nomination was intended to improve Iran’s relations with the West, to conclude treaties and agreements with western countries, to increase economic collaboration, and to recognize Iran as a power center in the Middle East. Such political maneuvering of nominating a moderate president had resulted in the conclusion of the five-plus-one agreement with the West, from which the Trump administration had withdrawn in May 2018. Both Presidents, Khatami, the former Iranian President from 1997 to 2005, and Rouhani, the Iranian President from 2013 to 2021, were trying to make great changes in the Iranian foreign policy towards the west on multiple levels. Their policy was to push Iran to be a part of the international society, as a regional power, through dialogue, diplomacy and cooperation (Yazdani, 2019, p. 475). But, due to the ambitious role and expansionist aspiration Iran is opting to exert in the region, the Iranian policy that was headed by Khatami and Rouhani had made limited successes in improving Iran’s relations with countries in the region and with the United States. Even though Khatami and Rouhani’s foreign policy was not secretive, which was a far cry from the previous foreign policy of secret agreements (such as Iran-Contra), this did not prevent the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and other Iranian leaders from expressing anti-Western and anti-American sentiments, describing the United States as the first enemy. Although Iranian foreign policy succeeded in strengthening its position and becoming one of the main players in the Middle East region i.e., in Iraq and Syria, the Iranian presidency was facing serious hurdles and hardships in its foreign policy approach. For example, the presidency had been gradually excluded from exerting any influence over some important foreign policy files in favor of the Supreme Leadership or the Revolutionary Guards (Yazdani, 2019, p. 476). For example, Kasra Naji, an Iranian journalist and a correspondent for the BBC stated on 26 April 2021 that "A leaked audio tape in which Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, bemoans that the Revolutionary Guards dominate the country's foreign policy" (Kasra Naji, 2021). The intervening the Supreme Leadership and the Revolutionary Guards (as will be shown 17 below) in the foreign policy makes it difficult for the presidency to implement and enforce its policies and keep up its promises in front of its people and the world community (Demirel, 2016, p. 60); (Yazdani, 2019, p. 476). 1.2.5. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps IRGC During the first year of the Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979, Khomeini (the leader of the revolution) had legitimate fears of a military coup led by officers in the traditional Iranian army who bore loyalty to the ousted monarchy. A coup, he worried, that could bring down the new revolutionary regime. To protect the revolution and himself from such an attempt, Khomeini created a military force loyal to the new regime from outside the traditional army and named it The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps IRGC (Alfoneh, 2013, p. 23); (Barany, 2019, pp. 49-50). According to article 151 of the Iranian Constitution, “The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, organized in the early days of the triumph of the Revolution, is to be maintained so that it may continue in its role of guarding the Revolution and its achievements” (Iranian Constitution, Article 151). This article gives the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps the constitutional legitimacy in suppressing any political opposition to the ruling authority, as was later represented in the crushing down of the demonstrations that called for political and economic reforms in 2019. Furthermore, the Iranian constitution vests in the IRGC the responsibility of exporting the revolution outside the borders of Iran and provides it with the constitutional legitimacy to spread the revolutionary principles to the neighboring countries (Iranian Constitution, Article 151), most presumably, through brute force as will be shown below. That being said, the IRGC had become a sort of an independent institution with its own financial and economic establishments, that are only accountable in front of the Supreme Leadership rather than the presidency or other restrictive institutions The number of the IRGC soldiers is estimated to be 120, 000 where 20, 000 of them are affiliated with the naval regiment, almost half of the Iranian naval forces (Morten Knøster, 2019, p. 65). The IRGC is also involved in missile development projects and high technology armaments. 18 During the Iran-Iraq war, the IRGC was an active player from the start. Despite initial losses to the Iraqi army, the IRGC later in 1982 onwards managed to liberate and regain all that had been occupied by the Iraqi army. The IRGC gained popular support due to its role in the liberation achievements and moved from being the protector of the revolution and the religious establishments towards being a symbol of national pride and patriotism. When Khamenei became the Supreme Leader in 1989, he sought to create a strong relationship with the IRGC as a way to win their loyalty in the face of other competing and more powerful religious authorities in the country. Ironically using the same strategy Khomeini used to solidify his reign. This reflected in increasing the economic reach and political influence of the IRGC during the nineties. (Dagher, 2020). The increasing role of the IRGC had put it at the center of foreign policy decision-making process, which sometimes enabled it to act independently from other high official institutions or even the presidency itself (Demirel, 2016, p. 103). After the end of the Iran-Iraq war (1980 - 1988), the IRGC had been able to become an independent economic giant that had controlled the backbone of the economy. The IRGC had taken control over financial establishments, i.e., Ansar bank, Iran Telecom, gas and oil companies, and religious tourism to Iraq and Syria (Ghiles, 2018). Moreover, the IRGC had exerted its influence to pass monopolistic laws to increase its share in the industrial and financial sectors not only in Iran, but also in Iraq, which had fallen under its sphere of influence. For example, the IRGC had succeeded in pushing its nominee, Ahmadinejad, to become the president, who in return, had provided the IRGC with huge economic privileges and government contracts which augmented the economic and political powers of the IRGC (Sinkay, 2016, pp. 186-187). As a consequence, the IRGC and the companies affiliated with it had taken control of over half of the Iranian imports and one-third of the non-oil exports. The profits of the companies that are affiliated with the IRGC are estimated to be around five billion US dollars every year (ADL Report, 2012, p. 3). In explaining the IRGC’s share in the Iranian economy, estimates are not conclusive. One of those estimates puts the IRGC as the owner of one-sixth of the Iranian GDP (Knøster, 2019, pp. 63-64). The IRGC, in short, seems to be an influential military, economic, and political power in the Iranian politics and has serious ramifications on the neighboring countries, like Iraq and Syria, which gradually fell under the IRGC’s influence. It might appear that 19 the IRGC acts alone and independent from the general policies of the Iranian state due to the supremacy of its influence over other institutions. Nonetheless, one needs to remember that the Iranian state, after all, acts as a whole towards the exportation of the revolution to other Muslim states, and the supremacy of the IRGC over other institutions is not to be taken as a representative example of conflict or contradiction. The IRGC follows the guidelines laid out by the Iranian constitution and fulfills the Iranian foreign policies in the region, a role that shifted the IRGC from being the liberator of Iranian land from Iraq towards becoming an influential military tool in Iraq (Demirel, 2016, p. 104). 1.3. Principles of foreign policy making in Iran: 1.3.1. National Identity At first, there are two principles that are deeply entrenched in the Iranian collective culture, which are the core of the Iranian national identity—Islamic Shiism and Iranianism (nationalism). These two components can be considered as the guiding principles or motivators of the Iranian foreign policies (Karimifard, 2011, pp. 240- 241). Both components are indicated in the name of the Islamic Republic of Iran, where the former, Islamic, can refer to the schism of Shiism, and the latter, Iran, refers to the ethnic component of the republic. The emphasis of these two components is not nominal only; rather, they are enshrined in the Iranian constitution, reflected into the Iranian leadership and implemented and acted out into the Iranian foreign policies. The majority of the people in Iran are Shiite Muslims who constitute 96% of the country’s population. Due to this huge majority, it is an accepted fact that Islamic Shiism plays an important role in the Iranian identity both at the grassroot level as well as at the official level (Ansari, 2002, p. 114). As spelled out in the Iranian Constitution in Article 12, the religion of the Iranian state is Shiism (Twelver Ja’farî school), which reads as “The official religion of Iran is Islam and the Twelver Ja’fari school…”. Furthermore, in Article 3, paragraph 16 of the Iranian Constitution, the Iranians should establish “the foreign policy of the country on the basis of Islamic criteria, fraternal commitment to all Muslims…”. According to these two constitutional articles, we can 20 see how important Islamic Shiism is in shaping the Iranian identity and how it became integrated into Iranian foreign policies. From the first one of these two componential elements, one can argue that the Twelver’s Ja’fari school forms an integral part of the Iranian national identity, whose ethos and principles are enshrined and promoted through Iran’s foreign policies. Iranianism, the second component, is the other integral part of the Iranian national identity and should be preserved and promoted as well. In article 3, paragraph 11 of the Iranian Constitution, [Iranianism should be maintained] “all round strengthening of the foundations of national defence to the utmost degree by means of universal military training for the sake of safeguarding the independence, territorial integrity…”. Many of the statements of the top Iranian leadership at various levels are directed to preserve and maintain the Iranian national agenda of Islamic Shiism, as well to defend the national interests of the Iranians if the need requires. For example, Rouhani, the previous Iranian president (succeeded by Ibrahim Raisi in August of 20201), stated that the people should need to know of and be familiar with the Iranian civilization and its historical legacy if they want to understand the Iranian regional influence in the Middle East and the legitimate claims of its demands (Rouhani, 2013). 1.3.2. Nationalism The term ‘Iran’ first appeared during the Sasanian Empire (224 AD - 651 AD) to describe the same geographical area of present-day Iran and the people under its rule (Gnoli, 1989, p. 68) During the Sasanian Empire, the Persian ethnic component was the backbone of the Iranian national identity while the term ‘Iranian’ was retained to describe the people incorporated into the political borders of Iran regardless of their ethnic diversity (Akbarzadeh and Barry, 2016, p. 617). The expansionism of the Sasanians into the neighboring region had incorporated other ethnic backgrounds and diversified the national milieu of the Iranians. Almost half of the population of Iran belong to ethnic groups other than Persian, such as Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Armenians, Afghans, Azerbaijani and so on (Salehzadeh, 2013, p. 8). The term ‘Iran’ is not an ethnic attribution, nor does it equate to Persian ethnicity. Rather, the term ‘Iran’ refers 21 to the geographical entity and the citizens of the Sasanian Empire. This term developed over time to become a political identity to include all of the inhabitants who had happened to live, or who were forcefully incorporated into the realm of the Sasanian Empire. Therefore, the Persian component, along with other ethnic minorities, constituted the Iranian national identity where the Persian element remained in charge of the major decision-making process. The Persian ethnic component remains the backbone of the Iranian national identity and its major driving force in social, economic and political terms (Akbar Aghajanian, 1983, p. 211), and the renewed use of the term ‘Iran’ is used as an inclusionary term to reduce ethnic sensitivities and iron out any racial differences in order to incorporate, or even integrate other ethnicities into a new unified identity. Such conception of the national identity, as mixed with the Iranian Shiism, had been strengthened and supported during the Safavid, Qajar, and Pahlavi dynasties. During their struggle against the colonial and other imperial European Influences, all the ethnic minorities under the cover term ‘Iranianism’ had fought side by side with the Persian component for their political independence and worked together for the prosperity and affluence of their citizens. The protracted Safavid-Ottoman conflicts had indirectly benefited the national milieu of the Iranian identity where the idea of ‘common enemy’ had ironed out any ethnic prejudice or racial discrimination, united them in the path of common destiny and cemented the national identity of Iranianism. Similarly, the Western imperial influences that occurred during the monarchies, Qajar and Pahlavi, had not only united the multi-ethnicities of the Iranians and cemented their national identity under Iranianism, but also ‘Iranianism’ had acquired another dimension which is ‘Shiism’ (Salsman, 2019, p. 62), as explained above. The emergence of Iranianism, as developed and consistently nurtured over the years, had added another form of distinguishing criterion—the Shiite schism of Iranian flavor, or the Iranian Shiism. As described earlier, the addition of Iranian Shiism to the Iranian national identity was mainly cultivated to distinguish the Iranians, who are already ethnically diversified, from other religious affiliations, i.e., the Sunni Muslims and Arab Shiite or from any other nation, ensuring Iran stands out as a unique nation, in which it was successful. The Iranian national identity is formed around the Persian ethnic component; yet they are Iranians. Iranianism had been developed to incorporate 22 the people of occupied nations over time (Aghajanian, 1983, p. 214). For example, to make Iranian blend even more homogeneous, the Sunni component of the Iranian territories were exterminated completely, forcing the Sunni people of Iran to convert into the Shiite schism. Such a complex nature of the Iranian national identity is reflected into the contradictory representations of the Iranian state. While Iran claims to be an Islamic state, rejecting any sort of secularity in its borders, nonreligious occasions like Nowruz or the Persian New Year are officially celebrated in Iran. Each year, during Nowruz, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidency send congratulation letters to countries, i.e., Tajikistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan, who are believed to have shared at some point in history the same Iranian heritage (Ziabari, 2014 p.1). In a similar vein, despite the Iranian revolution was purely Islamic and called for the return to the pristine principles of Islam, elements of national patriotism had been projected at some point during and after the Islamic revolution (Ansari, 2012, p. 198). Moreover, the Azeri and the Arab minorities are banned from using their native languages. Although the official language in Iran is Persian after the 1979 revolution, ethnic minorities are not allowed to use their native languages. For example, the Azeri minority, which constitutes 15% of the Iranian population, marched the streets to demonstrate against the ban of their language (Salehzadeh, 2013, p. 9). The Arab minority as well, is prohibited from using the Arabic language in the schools and universities, despite the fact that the Arabic language is taught in the Shiite religious establishments and is fluently spoken by Shiite scholars (Salehzadeh, 2013, p. 11). Those sentiments are also evident in the reactions of the Iranian elite towards random events. For example, the Iranians expressed strong feelings of anger and dissatisfaction over President Trump’s naming of the Persian Gulf as the Arab Gulf during his visit to Saudi Arabia in 2017 (Makarechi, 2017), as an indication reminiscent of radical nationalism. Despite the inflaming religious rhetoric and the propaganda of Islamic solidarity, some of the Iranian officials have expressed strong criticism and derogatory sentiments towards the Arabs, which often are interpreted as to have originated from racial superiority and Iranian expansion (Moeh and Abdullah 2016, p. 3). 23 In a nutshell, Iranianism refers to a political identity for all of those who lived within the borders of the Sasanian dynasty up until present-day Iran, and who were united voluntarily or involuntarily by their common history, cultural heritage, religious majority, colonial-phobia, and national interest (Moeh and Abdullah, 2016, pp. 1-2). 1.3.3. Shiism The Iranian population had gone through different historical phases that forged and readjusted their national identity. From the Safavids up to the Pahlavi dynasties, the religious Shiite establishments had been opting for a foothold and a veto power in the decision-making process in Iran, with total control of the country being the ultimate goal. To achieve such an objective, the Iranian clerics appealed to the Iranian ethnic identity as imparted by the ancient legacy of the Persian Empire and the Shiite schism in which the clerics could be involved in politics and share power with the ruling elite. The Iranian national identity was shaped in a way to accommodate the Shiite schism in order to find a room for the religious clerics to be in charge of important political positions. The power struggle between the king on one hand and the religious establishments on the other during almost all of the Iranian monarchies had displayed itself clearly, and each time the monarchy fell, the religious establishment was the one who was responsible. The power struggle in the former monarchy or the power distribution in the current theocracy is more or less the same and is reflected into the Iranian national identity. The Iranian identity which was formerly based on ethnic grounds had been persistently exposed to accommodate Shiism as another component to satisfy the political objectives of the religious clerics and other theocratic establishments. The interventionist colonial powers in the Iranian internal affairs and the role played by the religious establishments in defending the Iranian national interests had cemented the Iranian national identity around Shiism (Ramazani, 2010, p. 12); (Saraiva and Faro, 2012, p. 153). After the Westphalian Agreement in 1648, religious and sectarian identity had no major role in establishing the modern states in Europe, as well as in the countries of the Middle East. As compared to the Iranian state, the Middle East countries are 24 relatively new countries which emerged in the 20th century after direct colonial occupation where local religious and sectarian identities did not have a significant role in the politics of most Arab countries. Due to the Shiite minorities in the Arab countries as is the case in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, the employment of any sort of political sectarianism might stand as a destabilizing role in these countries and can weaken their centralized powers and institutions at the socio-political level. However, Iran represents a different experience (Bishara, 2017, pp. 20-25). The Iranian national identity, if to be fully understood, should be perceived solely through its historical legacy and sectarian selfhood rather than the modern standards of secular nationalism of western countries. To capture a fuller picture of the Iranian national identity, the relationship between Shiism and the Iranian state shall be emphasized from a historical perspective to highlight how intertwined Shiism and Iranianism are (Akbarzadeh and Barry, 2016, pp. 616-617). Islam entered Iran in the seventh century, and most of the region’s inhabitants embraced Islam in a short period of time. Over time, the Iranian contributions to the Islamic civilization were significant (Foltz, 2013, pp. 179-191). Despite the emergence of multiple independent states in Iran from the 10th century up until the 16th century, Iran had considered itself an integral part of the Islamic civilization and the Islamic nation. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the 16th century, Iran had witnessed a dramatic change of ferocious and merciless Shiitization of its own population. The vast majority of the population of Iran up until the onset of the 16th century belonged to the Sunni and Sufi sects, and the Iranian national identity was purely based on ethnicity where the Shiite sectarian component was not integrated or even considered a viable one of the Iranian identity. However, with the accession of the Safavids to power in 1501, the sectarian component began to establish itself, along with Iranian ethnicity, as an integral part of the Iranian national identity (Karimifard, 2012, p. 241). The founder of the Safavid state, King Ismail Shah, who had been greatly influenced by Persian culture, embraced the Twelver Shiite sect and considered the Twelver sect as the official religion of the state. He implemented brute force to impose such beliefs on his own people (Curtis and Hooglund, 2008, p. 18). The shah set out to uproot the violators of his newly adopted doctrine by using unjustified force and merciless 25 violence. For example, Iranian Sunnis were chased and killed, and orders were issued to curse the three rightly-guided caliphs (i.e., Abu-Bakr, Omar, Othman) in sermons and public places, and whoever refuses to do so or is seen performing the Sunni way of praying is sentenced to death. Moreover, Sunni mosques were demolished, the Naqshbandi Sufi shrines were destroyed, and many other Sufi orders were suppressed. Large massacres took place against the Sunnis in many cities, such as the ‘Tabriz’ massacre, which is said to have had more than twenty thousand victims, and the ‘city of Yazd’ massacre, in which the death toll was not less than seven thousand. The cities of Kazron, Tabus, and Khorsan had met more or less the same fate (Kreem Abd al- Majeed, 2017); (Arafah Pramasto, 2020, p. 29). It seems that the Safavid’s dynasty had been interested in creating a unifying identity that is solely unique for the Iranian nation to make it stand out from other neighbouring identities, like the Sunni Turks and Arabs, as well as the Shiite Arabs. Of major concern to the Safavids was the creation of a harmonious Iranian identity that could bond together the whole national milieu into a unique national formula that distinguishes Iranian Islamic identity from any other religious or sectarian divisions in the region, and at the same time, is commensurate with the legacy of the Persian Empire (Pramasto, 2020, pp. 29-30). Such extreme nationalism ethos of the Safavids were very dominant and widely accepted as the popular culture at that time to the extent that Western foreigners had recorded examples of it in their travelling diaries. Upon his stay in Iran for twelve years during the Safavid’s time, the famous French traveller Jean Chardin wrote “According to the Iranian notables and Geographers, their country is the greatest empire in the globe……the Iranian emphasizes that Iran had lost parts of its vast territories but will reconquer its boundaries to what it was during the ancient period” (Safaetgoland Mansour, 2006, p. 13). The Safavids had succeeded in cementing the Iranian identity around Iranian Shiism, and the two had become intertwined ever since, with each single component entailing the meaning of the other. The Safavids had not only succeeded in creating a national identity of Iranian Shiism, but also in creating an Islamic identity that is different from the rest of the Islamic world which will be employed later as a pretext for the Iranian expansionist aspirations in the region. Current Iran is a continuation from the Safavids’ Persia, both in geographical land and people, uninterrupted by foreign occupations as 26 suffered by many of the neighboring countries. One can argue that the Iranians are still holding the same sectarian nationalist mindset that their ancestors had established and instilled by brute force, and the modern state of Iran is just a novel representation of the Iranian national identity that was created around Iranian ethnicity and Shiism, which cemented uninterrupted independence since the Safavids till the current time (Curtis and Hooglund, 2008, p. 3). In the era of the Qajar monarchy that followed the Safavid monarchy in Iran, the Shiite clerics and religious establishments had come to play a significant role in the economic and political lives of Iranians. As the clerics in Iran became a social and economic powers of significant importance with great businesses and properties at their disposal throughout the country, these religio- economic institutions had become so influential and effective at socio-political levels to the point that they started to pose a challenge to the political order (Alsabki, 1999, p. 16). In the second middle of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century, the relationship between the religio-economic class and the Qajar ruling family had deteriorated as a result of the kings’ concessions and privileges given to Britain and Russia which had threatened the thriving of their businesses. As a result of these concessions to foreign powers, the religious establishment aligned itself with the religio-economic class against the ruling family, where the religious establishment had been able to mobilize the masses through religious fatwas against the ruling family on religious occasions, i.e., Ashura, and other occasions. All of these activities played a major role in weakening the Qajar monarchy. In fact, the alliance between the clerical establishment, the merchant class, and other national intellectuals of westernized culture, had supported the Tobacco Rebellion in1890, and later the Constitutional Revolution in 1905, which had finally led to the downfall of the last king of the Qajar family in 1925 (Alsabki, 1999, pp. 21-26). The role of Shiite clerics in the national movement in resisting foreign companies and the influence of Western countries during the Qajar monarchy, and their participation in what is known as the Tobacco Rebellion and the People’s Constitutional Revolution, gave them political legitimacy in front of the Iranian people because they played a major part of the national movement and defending the interests of Iranians and resisting colonial powers (Alsabki, 1999, pp. 28-29). The newly established Iranian identity around Shiism was tested first during the Qajar period, and the significant role 27 of the Shiite clerics in espousing and defending the Iranian national interest against foreign powers had cemented the Iranian national identity around Shiism and the Iranian religious establishments. It is this political asset that was masterfully manipulated by the religious clerics in the Islamic revolution in 1979 and contributed to its success and continues to be so up to the current moment. In 1925, Ali Reza Pahlavi, an army officer, had carried out a coup d’état in Iran and he was later nominated as the king of Iran in the same year (Akbarzadeh and Barry, 2016, pp. 624-625). During the Pahlavi dynasty (1925 - 1979), the Iranian people and the religious establishment were subjected to tyrannical and dictatorial rule with the relative exception of 1940s and the beginning of 1950s. Iran had also become an arena for Western intervention, especially from the United States (Abrahamian, 1982, pp. 259-260). As a result of the Pahlavi dictatorial regime and the Western intervention in Iran, the sixties and seventies of the last century had witnessed violent turmoil and upheavals, where the Shiite clerics once again had played a significant role. The Shiite clerics employed religious rhetoric, fatwas and religious occasions to mobilize against the tyrannical rule of the Shah. Moreover, the clerics called for a Shiite theocracy in the form of the guardianship of the Islamic jurist, or Velayet-i-Faqih, which Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran, had later developed and adopted. Such theory of governance, which is mainly based on the Iranian Shiite theocracy, had become the political ideology of the Iranian regime after 1979 (Akbarzadeh and Barry, 2016, pp. 624-625). 1.3.4. Islamic Revolution During the Pahlavi’s rule, Iran was a secular state that had been undergoing huge developmental projects and pursuing a promising westernization agenda; nonetheless, it had also been supporting Shiites outside its geographical borders. Such non- conventional behavior of a secular country to support and sponsor religious diplomacy abroad can explain how Shiism and ethnicity are mixed together to form the national identity of the Iranians. The emergence of the Islamic Revolution in Iran was in part due to the complexity of the Iranian national identity that was divided across Shiism 28 and ethnicity which had nurtured and developed since the Safavids' time. Secular Iran had been assuming the defense of Shiite population outside its geographical borders as well as its national interests at the expense of the sovereignty of Arab Gulf states. For example, Pahlavi Iran considered itself as the defender of the Shiites in Arab countries and provided support for the Shiites in Iraq and elsewhere (Zimmt, 2017, pp. 139-135). Moreover, Iran occupied three islands which belonged to the United Arab Emirates, Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa in 1971, and the Iranian regime considered Bahrain as a part of the Iranian lands (Camron Michael Amin, 2017, p. 144). On different occasions, the shah had stated that the Iranians belong to the Aryan race while the Arabs belong to the Semitic race, indicating the inferiority of Arabs as compared to his own (Zimmt, 2017, p. 130). Inherent in such a comment is the deep belief of race nationalism rather than ethnic nationalism, despite the fact that it was never explicitly stated or officially adopted (Ansari, 2017, p. 101). During the Khomeini era (1979 - 1989), however, the rhetoric had changed a little bit, yet the same expansionist objectives remained unchanged. In Khomeini's propaganda there were a mixture of concepts from different political and ideological orientations jumbled together in a way that makes it stand out from any other revolutionary propaganda in the world. In its initial stage, the revolution adopted multi political ideologies of liberalism, nationalism, Marxism, Islamism, and Shiism that are reminiscent of the contradictory policies of secularism and the sponsorship of Shiism outside the Iranian borders during the Pahlavi regime (Ansari and Aarabi, 2019, p. 12). To explain why or justify the internal theoretical incongruities, the leaders of the Iranian revolution had claimed that their ideology is a combination between communism and capitalism that serves the Islamic Nation (Ansari and Aarabi, 2019, p. 12). Despite the sheer contradictions of its theoretical and political orientations, the Islamic Revolution had succeeded, and the principles of Islamic Revolution had been added to Shiism and ethnicity as backbone constituents of the Iranian national identity. Among the proclaimed principles of the revolution were the defense of the Islamic Nation, i.e., Ummah, supporting the liberation movements, and the exportation of the revolution outside its geographical borders (Hourcade, 2017, p. 218); (Friedman, 2010, p. 5). To gain universal support for his revolution, Khomeini stated “We would like to act according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We would like to be free. 29 We would like independence,” expressing support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Muhammad Arif Mustunsir, 2012, p. 17). However, it took the new regime in Iran just one year to contradict the principles of the Islamic revolution of solidarity and Islamic nationhood. In 1980, the Iran-Iraq war had erupted over Shatt Al-Arab waterway, and soon anti-Arab propaganda was resumed as earlier. The first president of the Islamic Republic, Abu Al-Hasan Bani Sadr, had explicitly stated that “Iraq was throughout history a part of ‘Faris’ (Persia) and the Gulf Region was always Iranian property. Hence, the Gulf’s oil lies within Persian territories'' (Moeh and Abdullah, 2016, p. 3). Furthermore, such expansionist sentiments did not stop all along the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and new official statements supported former declarations. For example, Ali Younis, the advisor to the Iranian President, Ali Rouhani, stated that “Baghdad is now the capital of the Iranian empire” (Thomas E. Ricks. Foreign Policy, Mar. 3, 2016). Like the Pahlavi regime, which had supported the Shiites in Iraq and occupied the Emirati Arab Islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa, the consecutive regimes in the Islamic republic pursued the same objectives, despite the different names given. Pahlavi Iran and post-revolution Iran had adopted the same propagandas of defending the Shiite populations outside the Iranian borders. During the seventies and eighties, Pahlavi and Islamic Iran could not exert any significant influence over the Iraqi Shiite. Such mere fact had forced Iran during the war to appeal to other slogans such as ‘the mother land of Iran’ or ‘the Iranian nation’ instead of the Islamic nation that was losing significance (Akbarzadeh and Barry, 2016, p. 619); (Hourcade, 2017, p. 219). Slogans such as Saddam’s regime in Iraq is the enemy of Islam and the people of Iran were also appealed to during the Iran-Iraq war (Rezaei, 2019, pp. 115-116). Once again, the Iranian national identity is being redrawn around nationalism rather than Islamism to accommodate for the dynamic changes of politics and to serve the national interests of Iran. When Ahmadinejad became the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2005, he spoke of protecting the interests of the Iranian nation which appears as an alternative to the Islamic nation (Akbarzadeh and Barry, 2016, p. 617). 30 The national identity of Iran remained the same before and after the Islamic Revolution. The Iranian national identity is divided across Iranian Shiism and Iranian Nationalism, to serve the aspirations of expansionism in the region at the expense of the Arab sovereign countries. The official statements of both the Pahlavi and the post- revolution leaders are basically the same while the change of the regime can only be considered as an internal power struggle among the Iranians themselves. The only difference between the so-called secular Pahlavi regime and its Islamic counterpart is that the former had failed in expanding its influence whereas the second had succeeded. 1.3.5. Iran Geopolitical Concerns Indeed, the strategic geographic location of Iran and its huge oil and gas reservation have increased Iran's influence in the international arena. Iran derives that importance originally from the geo-strategic location of the Middle East region as a whole. Iran and the Middle East in general, are located in a critical spot of the world on the routes of vital sea trade (Mohammad Nuruzzaman, 2009. pp. 7-8). The Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf have delivered the European Countries with easy sea routes to establish significant trade with the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia. Iran is also linked to East Asia via the historic silk route from the Middle East to China (Mohammad Nuruzzaman, 2009, p. 8). This could explain Iran's desire to extend its influence in Afghanistan, which shares a border with China. Since the Iranian revolution, Iran's expansionist infiltration into the Gulf region had been increasing which attracted the concerns of superpowers such as the United States, China and Russia, as well as Israel. Capitalizing on the Iranian-Iraqi animosity that had accumulated during the Iran-Iraq war, since 1991 the United States had coordinated with Iran to oust the regime of Saddam Hussein which was the sole regional power in the region. With the help of the Americans, Iran had replaced Iraq and the balance of power was tipped off in favor of Iran. Due to the rising star of Iranian power in the region, Iran seems to have been pursuing a regional hegemony in the region that is rich in oil, and in so doing, had deviated from the American red lines 31 that it was supposed to abide by. Iran’s nuclear program and its military presence in Iraq and Syria are very clear examples for its regional expansionist aspirations which are posing real security challenges in the neighboring Gulf Arab countries. The United States, which had indirectly helped the Iranians to become a regional power, is faced with the dilemma of containing the Iranian power or letting the Iranians to become a serious challenge for the whole region. However, the political scene is not as simple as it might appear to be, as the whole situation is getting more complex due to the political players who have become involved in the game. China, which is in constant need for oil and gas to keep up with its huge industry, had been interested to increase the levels of economic cooperation with Iran; namely, the importation of natural gas and oil in exchange for high-tech productions and technological equipment which Iran could not procure due to its rentier economy (Harlod and Nader, 2012, pp. 18-19). While the Chinese policy towards Iran is clear as based on economic cooperation and mutual benefits that are solely based on business grounds, the Russian-Iranian relationship is less obvious despite the military collaboration between them. Russia had helped Iran with the establishment of the Iranian power plants and nuclear reactors and provided Iran with armaments and artillery it needed for its security and its expansionist aspirations in the region. Yet, Russia is still abiding by the sanctions of the UN Security Council against Iran. Russia’s foreign policies towards the Middle East, as it had always been in the past, had not a steady and straightforward agenda, and is always playing the odds to maximize its political and economic benefits. Russia arms Iran and provides it with modern artillery to strengthen its regional power and enable it to pursue its expansionist aspiration; nonetheless, it is always ready for constructive negotiations with the US and the West (Fite, 2012, pp. 10-11). Within such a political scene, Iran’s power, and henceforth Iran’s geopolitical concerns, seems to be dependent on these three major superpowers. The US miscalculation in tipping the balance for Iran, which was facilitated by occupying Iraq in 2003, seemed to be the golden opportunity that Iran had been waiting for to pursue its own political agenda in the region. With the help of the Americans’ collaboration, Iran had extended its influence not only in Iraq but also in Syria as well. Although it was the Russians and the Iranians who had helped support the regime of Bashar al-Assad in 2015, it was the American-Iranian collaboration in Iraq, and the covert American consent to the Iranian expansionism in Iraq that had helped Iran to spiral out of control of the American 32 sphere of influence. Russia and China’s roles, though influential, seem to be secondary in influencing the geopolitics of Iran. It was the Americans who miscalculated the real intentions of Iran and underestimated the whole situation, which had led Iran to propose more challenging claims in the region. The Iranian increase of power in Syria had alerted Israel and raised serious concerns for the Jewish state. However, Israel and Iran are more likely to be regional competitors rather than enemies as they do not share any geographical borders, and each one of them seeks a different sphere of influence. Iran’s main interventionist policies are directed towards the Arabian Gulf whereas Israel’s main policies are directed to increase its influence in the Levant (Kaye, Nader & Roshan, 2011, p. 1). Overall, Iran is bent on increasing its political influence in the region of the Arabian Gulf, and to some extent, it has succeeded in Iraq and Syria. However, such success is transitory and temporal in nature because all of the contributing factors to its success are externally based. Russia’s opportunism in the region and China’s economic pragmatism towards Iran cannot be taken to mount to strategic alliances with Iran, and the rules of politics can easily shift if the Americans have the intentions to reaffirm their hegemony in the region. Furthermore, Iran’s economy is solely based on rentier revenues of oil and lacks the industrial potentials to carry out developmental projects to diversify its economic resources, and the economic sanctions have proven to be an effective technique in containing its unbridled expansionist agenda. It is obvious that controlling Iraq is geopolitically crucial for the survival of the Iranian regime to prevent any future military attacks based in Iraq against Iranian territory. Also, it’s important for Iran to achieve economic and political benefits to manoeuvre the sanctions, and to extend its influence over the Arab gulf region. 33 Chapter Two Since the emergence of the Iraqi state after World War I, the successive Iranian regimes have been convinced that Iraq represents a strategic depth for Iran. At the same time, Iraq represents a threat and a competitor to the Iranian state, mainly because it enjoys enormous natural resources, especially with the early discovery of oil in Iraq at the beginning of the twentieth century. Therefore, Iran has not missed any opportunity to contain and control Iraq along with its resources since that time. 2.1. The Iraq War and the Iranian Reaction (Expansionist Aspirations) The Iranian expansionist aspiration in Iraq dates back many years before the Islamic revolution. At the beginning of the seventies, the Shah’s regime in Iran had been providing military support to the Kurdish separatist factions to the central government in Baghdad. However, in 1975 Iran signed the Algiers Agreement, which ended the animosity between the two states, and Iran committed itself to non-interventionist policies in the Iraqi internal affairs up until to its downfall (Andreas Vis, 2015, pp. 33- 55). However, the official statements of the new Iranian Islamic regime had demonstrated expansionist aspiration into the region, especially, towards the Iraqi’s territories. The Iranian expansionist aspiration had been encapsulated either through the rhetoric of the exportation of the Islamic revolution to other Muslim countries or through the Iranian territorial claims into the Iraqi’s land. The most obvious claim was that of the first Iranian president of the Iranian Islamic republic, Hassan Bani Sadr, that “Iraq was throughout history a part of “Faris” (Persia) and the Gulf region was always Iranian property. Hence, the Gulf's oil lies within Persian territories'' (Moeh and Abdullah, 2016, p. 3). Iran, however, had not been able to actualize these claims during the Iran-Iraq war, and could not exert or extend its influence in Iraq or any Arab land till the end of the war in 1988. The Iranian dream of controlling Iraq began when the United States had invaded Iraq in 2003. After 9/11 attacks, the US had invaded 34 Iraq using multiple pretexts such as accusing Iraq of hosting terrorism and the possession of weapons of mass destruction. The Iranian state, as a result, had found itself accidentally at the advantage point with the international alliance against terrorism which enabled it to extend its regional influence in the Arab countries through the Iraqi territories. The American invasion of Iraq had tipped the balance in favor of the Iranians and allowed the Iranians to render Iraq as a satellite state without national sovereignty (Rezaei, 2019, p. 136). In the following discussion, the political scene of Iraq after 2003 will be explained with some details in order to highlight how the Iranian influence had eventually managed to subjugate the Iraqi state, and how it succeeded in rendering Iraq as a clientele state governed by and directed from Tehran (Rezaei, 2019, pp. 135-136) 2.1.1. Risks & Opportunities Arising from the US Invasion The US intervention in Iraq was formulated under multiple pretexts. Among of these proclaimed covers were the Iraqi’s possession of weapons of mass destructions, Iraq’s sponsorship of terrorism, and the propagation of democracy in Iraq, which all turned out to be false later. Regardless of the truth or falsity of these claims, the US had changed the balance of power in the region in favor of Iran and complicated the political scene that were usually against the proclaimed promises of democracy and development. Right after the US invasion in 2003 (Danju et al., 2013, pp. 682-683), the United States played a role with the help of Iran to draw a constitution that is solely based on ethnic and sectarian division rather than principles of secularism which is considered the basic constituent of democracy, development, and the protection of human rights (Jawad, 2013, p. 10). The US implicit consent over the Iranian intervention in Iraq had given it the potential to extend its influence in the region and allowed Iran to play a larger role in the politics of the region. Iran had used the American consent for its own political benefits and pursued a policy of its own that was most of the time at odds with the American interests (Moeh and Abdullah, 2016, p. 3). Iran’s growing influence in Iraq and Syria has become pressing priorities for the United States due to their future potential effects in destabilizing the security of the region in the form of breeding terrorist activities and sectarian clashes. Despite the 35 United States having benefited from Iran, it became very obvious that Iran had gained more from the American-Iranian collaboration. Iran has been able to decide about the foreign policies of Iraq and plays a major role in the politics of Syria, and still boasts about the exportation of Islamic Revolution principles into the Arab countries (Moeh and Abdullah, 2016, p. 1). The Iranian success in the Gulf region, in essence challenges the international order of oil security and the American hegemony in the region, which is a traditional playground for the United States. The overestimation of the Iranian power, as either a result of American miscalculations or the Iranian deviation off the outlined American policies, had become a serious concern for the United States. Currently, during Biden's administration, there have been calls in Washington for reassessment, and if necessary, a reformulation of the policies towards Iran. 2.2. The Political Scene in Iraq since 2003 After the US invasion, the Iraqi political scene had become disrupted, the government institutions collapsed, terrorism and vandalism had spread all over the country, and sectarian clashes had begun to emerge on the surface. These insecurities had allowed the pro-Iranian groups to infiltrate into the socio-political stratum of the Iraqi society, and to fill in the political vacuum that was left after the collapse of the Iraqi government. The political scene in Iraq was not completely conducive to the Iranian intervention through clientele organizations and pro-Iranian political parties. The Iraqi political scene was not totally devoid of Iraqi political parties that were not fully in line with the Iranian political agenda or completely comfortable with its interventionist policies in Iraq. It is worth mentioning that after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime and his Baathist national party, there emerged different political parties of different foreign affiliations and agendas which can roughly be classified into pro-Western and Pro- Iranian. Such classification is not to be necessarily perceived conclusive, and the two emergent groups of parties had collaborated, and sometimes, conflicted with each other due to their different political objectives. Among the pro-Western parties, are the Kurdistan Democratic Party, KDP, and the Kurdistan Union Party, KUP, which had traditionally fought against the central government in Baghdad with American-British support since 1958, right after the fall of the monarchy—ten years before the Baathist 36 party seized power in 1968 (Dahlman, 2002, p. 286). These parties had been struggling to achieve independence for their Kurdish ethnic minority which is estimated to be 15% of the total Iraqi population (Blanchard, 2020). Historically, these parties cooperated with the parties that were loyal to Iran, and together, they had been collaborating and colluding politically and militarily against the central government in Baghdad since 1980. After 2003, these parties worked together and participated in the political process to achieve independence for the ethnic Kurdish minority and establish their Kurdish state as independent from the central government of Baghdad. As a result of their collaboration, these two parties had been successful in achieving autonomy for three Kurdish provinces of Kurdish majority with autonomous government and military forces. However, these two parties started competing over the control of the region, both among themselves and with other countries, which in turn, weakened their alliance and dissipated their political power as independent political parties. For example, left wing the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party, PUK led by Jalal Talabani, strengthened its relations with Iran and the Syrian regime while the conservative Kurdistan Democratic Party, KDP led by Massoud Barzani, strengthened its relations with Turkey (Leezenb, 2015, p. 166). Henceforth, the Kurdish parties lack the potential to influence the political scene in Iraq for two reasons. First, the Kurdish parties do not represent the majority of the Iraqi population; rather, they represent the interests of the Kurdish ethnic minority. Second, the involvement of regional powers like Iran and Syria on one hand and Turkey on the other, have rendered these two parties as proxy agents serving these powers rather than meeting their national ethnic rights, thus weakening their presence in the Iraqi political scene (Farhad Hassan Abdullah, 2018, pp. 3-4) The Iraqi National Alliance, Iraqiyya, was established after 2003 under the leadership of Iyad Allawi, who is descendant from a Shiite family. Despite his Shiite affiliation, Allawi held secular beliefs and had political support from the United States. He assumed the transitional position of prime minister from June 2004 to February 2005. Despite the victory of his political party, Iraqiyya, with a high percentage of seats in the Iraqi parliament, in 2010, Allawi was unable to become the prime minister of Iraq. Later on, his political party had split into three insignificant groups without any political influence in Iraqi politics (Katzman and Humud, 2016, p. 5). This leaves us 37 with the last pro-Western political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, which has a popular base among the Sunni Arab community. The origins of the Iraqi Islamic Party go back to the Muslim Brotherhood and adopts its ideology as a political program. The party which was led by Tariq Al-Hashemi had run for the parliamentary elections but later withdrew. In 2011, the Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki passed an order to pursue the party leaders, including its leader Tariq al-Hashemi, and since that time he has been living in exile in Turkey