According to an article presented by
Tehran Bureau, the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), and the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars and published late in November last year,
"Iran does not have an interest in Iraq pumping additional oil. It does not
want Iraq to have a close
relationship with the United States,
the Arab states or with Turkey.
Iran also does not want Iraq to develop
a significant defensive military capability. Ideally, Iran would like to have Iraq under its
thumb, yet retain its independence and sovereignty."
Nonetheless, the US seems ambivalent.
Pollack has the following interpretation: "Although
both Washington and Tehran claim to oppose the other, what Iraqis have seen-- at
least since 2010, but arguably longer-- has been the Americans and the Iranians
pushing in the same directions: in favor of (PM al-) Maliki against any and all
opposition, and against renewed violence. It's no wonder that many Iraqis
believe that either the U.S.
does not understand its own interests, or else we are selling them out to the
Iranians in return for something that they cannot fathom."
To all indications, Iran and US, whether
in competition or cooperation, will continue for a long period to come to
compromise the sovereignty and independence of Iraq, but "One has to always
remember that throughout Iraq's recent existence, it has been a very
nationalist country" and will not succumb to a status of a client state either
to the United States or to Iran, in view of the Washington-based, Tony
Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS), quoted by Al -- Arabia satellite TV station on July 25 last year.
* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist
based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
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