Shafaq News/ The British Observer newspaper published an editorial entitled “ Iraqi protests and the indifference of the West “ in which it said that Iranian leaders deny that they have ambitions to build a Persian empire in the current Middle East, and say that, unlike America, Iran is not an imperial power.
But the picture changed from what many Lebanese see, with Hezbollah's military and financial support becoming the center of street protests. The position that Iran is merely a neighbor is unacceptable if we see its role in Yemen, where the war has killed 100,000 people. The conflict in this country is like a classic proxy war between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, with each side trying to assert its dominance in the region. Moderates in Iran fear the close relationship between the Revolutionary Guards and the hardline religious establishment, which reflects a risky policy.
One of the most prominent figures and hawks is General Qassem Soleimani, commander of Quds Force in the Revolutionary Guards. So it was no surprise that he appeared in Baghdad and other Shiite cities that threatened to overthrow the government. Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi owes his job to Iran, which became the godfather of power in Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal in 2011.
Iraq is considered a "non-Iranian province" of non-imperial Iran, and for this reason Soleimani insists that this province does not escape the hands of Tehran as the explanation for his presence was normal, with an unnamed Iranian official said that “ the Iraqi security forces are important to us and in the past we have been assisted , the corps commander travels to Iraq and the rest of the region regularly when our allies ask for help”.
In fact, Soleimani rebuked Iraqi leaders after important Iraqi leaders threatened to overthrow Abdul Mahdi. The paper believes that Suleimani's attempts to pick things up for the prime minister emerged through the decline of the call to force him to resign, and this is not a good warning for Iraq.
On Friday, two days after his intervention, Baghdad witnessed the largest anti-government demonstration demanding the uprooting of the corrupt establishment and an end to Iranian interference.
The Newspaper says that the challenge to the political system in Iraq is not a problem for Tehran, but rather an existential dilemma for the three-dimensional and fragile political system in Iraq. After the U.S. occupation in 2003, Iraq's leaders failed to provide basic items, such as safe water and electricity.
Iraqi youth are facing unemployment and a lack of jobs, and politicians, whoever they are, are seen as corrupt and helpless.
In a country that is OPEC's second-largest oil producer with 12% of the world's oil reserves, the persistent deficit seems unwarranted. Iraqis are still suffering the effects of the U.S. occupation, before a period of fighting against ISIS.
Observer say that many in the United States and Britain believe that the separation of Iraq has ended and closed, although this is not true, Western countries that, unlike modern Iran, acted without a legal pretext and arrogance, changed the regime in Iraq, and tried to control the course later to bear the responsibility to ensure the integrity of democracy and freedom from jihadist terrorism.
This responsibility extends to the Iraqi people, who are screaming loudly for a fresh start. In the past few days, about 250 people have been killed and thousands injured, just because they dared to demand freedom and just democracy that they have been promised in 2003. If this carnage were occurring in Hong Kong or Barcelona, there would be a deafening uproar. Why, when we claimed to care so much, do we not care about Iraq?