qodsna.ir qodsna.ir

US landmines in upcoming Iraqi elections

Qodsna Editorial Board

Tehran (Qodsna) - What has made this election more important than ever is the goals of domestic, regional and international actors. 

The closer we get to the Iraqi parliamentary elections, the more electoral the Iraqi atmosphere becomes. According to the election campaign and the candidates' campaigns, this is the most expensive election in Iraq. Although the current situation in Iraq is affected by the ArbaŹ½ein ceremony, there is still a widespread effort by candidates and currents to introduce and impose themselves on the minds of the Iraqi audience.

 

What has made this election more important than ever is the goals of domestic, regional and international actors.

 

The current parliament passed a revolutionary resolution calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country. However, the law was passed without the presence of representatives of the Kurdistan Region and some Sunni representatives. It shows the unity of the Shiite representatives, which hold a majority in parliament, and did not allow the US to achieve its goal, despite efforts by representatives of the region and some Sunni provinces to abstract a parliamentary session, which its goal was to consider and approve the withdrawal of foreign troops.

 

Since then, the United States has tried to circumvent the law by putting mechanisms in place to shift the balance in the Iraqi parliament. In his first actions, the US officials tried to overthrow the government of Adel Abdul Mahdi, and then by infiltrating some Shiite currents, Al-Kadhimi, whose record shows very strong cooperation with the United States in the field of intelligence, entered the Iraqi political equation as the prime minister, whose most important task is holding early elections as well as resolving Iraq's economic problems.

 

Al-Kadhimi has taken steps during this period that have been strongly protested by the people and parties. Corruption has increased sharply during the Al-Kadhimi era, and his government, rather than being willing to solve the country's economic problem, seeks to facilitate the conditions to maximize the role of the United States in the political, economic and military structures of Iraq.

 

In connection with the elections, by influencing the election committee, Al-Kadhimi has made changes in the country's election process, which shows that he is moving in the direction of the American orders.

 

In the elections of this period, the presentation of the electoral list has lost its relevance and has been replaced by individual and off-list elections. Constituencies have also changed from 18 to 83, and the demarcation of constituencies has been defined in such a way that some cities are defined in two constituencies. Cases like this show that there is a special plan to change the electoral equations and create a rift among Shiite representatives to take the majority from them and to influence the process of parliamentary approvals.

 

The United States hopes that with the success of this electoral engineering, it will repeal the current anti-American resolution of the current parliament, as well as providing the ground for limiting and reducing the authority of anti-American currents, which it interprets as Iran's sphere of influence. The most important is the status issue and the weapons of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which the United States considers the biggest obstacle to its control over Iraq.

 

However, opinion polls suggest that the situation is not welcomed by the United States, and the coalition led by Nouri al-Maliki and al-Fatah continues to lead by a wide margin.