ANALYSIS: Revealing the brutal repression of Kurds in Iran

F. Mahmoudi, Special to Al Arabiya EnglishSaturday, 9 September 2017



Acts of brutality against the Kurdish population in Iran is a regular occurrence. For instance, just a few days ago (September 4, 2017), soldiers of Iran’s dreaded Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp of Iran (IRGC) shot dead two porters in cold blood in the western city of Baneh.
In protest against the killings, demonstrations broke out in the Kurdish city and a large number of residents gathered outside the governor’s office on Tuesday (September 5) demanding an end to the ongoing attacks against workers.
According to reports by opposition groups, a number of shops and markets were closed in support of the protests, even as the regime’s security forces clashed with protesters. Video recordings of these clashes have also been released by certain opposition groups.
The Kurdish workers killed by the IRGC, were porters who made a living by carrying heavy loads on their backs across the border with Iraq and Turkey. Since the overthrow of Shah’s dictatorial regime by a social revolution which was hijacked by Khomeini in 1979, the oppression against Kurds — like other minor communities in Iran — increased dramatically. The living condition of Kurds is reminiscent of the era of slavery because of the rampant poverty, unemployment and injustice.

Khomeini, who was himself the son of an Indian immigrant, called the Kurds separatists and counter-revolutionaries, while they are legitimate Iranian citizens! This was the beginning of his betrayal of the Iranian people, who trusted him without fully knowing him.
Nearly 40 years have passed, but the achievements of the Khomeini regime in the age of great industrial and technological development is evident from the kidney selling, bone selling, infant selling and in the proliferation of porters.
Why do Kurdish people work as porters? Why are people from different generations, including educated people and academics, engaged in this menial and life-threatening work?

For a regime whose ideology and politics are based on hostility towards it people and which has seized control of the immense wealth of Iran, which earns income from oil and gas and is systematically involved in the smuggling of weapons and narcotics, industrial production and business entrepreneurship have virtually ceased to exist.

According to some Iranian media estimates: “The volume of smuggling operations stands at $25 billion, three times the country's development budget” and “[t]he smuggling of goods and currency has left 800,000 people unemployed. Smuggling destroys 1,75 million job opportunities a year”.
In the absence of industrial production, everything is under the discretion and control of a mafia system, as most Iranians live below the poverty line. In Kurdistan, the situation is even worse. Therefore people are forced to take menial and unskilled jobs and become porters to meet their basic needs.
An Iranian newspaper writes: “Becoming a porter is not an occupation because it compromises with human dignity, and the debate is how much a person can take to make 70-80,000 Tomans ($20). In Sardasht, there is no industry, few factories, no jobs and there are over 8,000 injuries because of hazardous chemicals used in factories”.
Some reports indicate that there are more than 68,000 porters working in Iran's outlying provinces. A porter sometimes has to lift about 100 to 150 kilos in the mountains and endure extreme heat, cold, rain and snow. They face a lot of dangers and physical hazards, the most threatening beingthe regular shooting by Iranian security forces who target them on an almost daily basis.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the viewpoint of Al Arabiya English.

Khomeini’s repression of Iranian Kurds

In August 1979, just five months since the fall of the Shah, Khomeini had ordered a military assault on Iranian Kurdistan. The people of Kurdistan were only demanding basic rights and freedoms for themselves and for all the people of Iran. But Khomeini's response to these demands was a military campaign and the massacre of people. He sent a special judge and Representative Sadeq Khalkhali to Kurdistan to carry out mass executions and send out a gruesome message of coercion.

Criminal economy

In the political theory of velayat-e faqih, there is no place for the welfare of people. Accordingly, no thought is given to their livelihood and sustenance. This flaw lies at the root of the social and economic malaise that afflicts the country. The regime only knows how to use the wealth of the Iranian people to suppress them and for exporting fundamentalism and terrorism abroad.

Workforce of porters

According to human rights groups, a total of 212 porters were killed and injured by IRGC guards between 2013 and 2015. Iranian opposition groups have repeatedly called on international organizations to condemn the killings of these poor workers by the IRGC and other security forces.
After the latest shooting deaths of porters in Baneh, an activist said: ‘‘Let’s call for the withdrawal of all IRGC forces from Hamadan, Sanandaj, and so on. The governor must go, the killers must be punished. We have sent letters and reports to international human rights organizations for years, but our pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Now we will defend ourselves for the rights of porters and we want the stop their killings.”

Regime on a powder keg

Kurdish protest are not only against inequality and discrimination, they also reveal the growing anger and discontent of the people with the regime. It sends out a message to the world that the Iranian regime is sitting on a powder keg. People want to change this regime. They need to be supported by the international community by putting pressure on the Iranian regime to stop its violation of human rights.
____________
F. Mahmoudi is a Kurdish-Iranian political and human rights activist. 

IRANIAN OPPOSITION ELECTS NEW SECRETARY GENERAL

Masoud Dalvand –TDO- (AMERICA) At its annual congress held in Tirana, Albania, principal Iranian opposition group People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) elected Ms. Zahra Merrikhi as its new Secretary General. Ms. Merrikhi will be replacing Ms. Zohreh Akhyani, who had been holding the position since 2011.

The PMOI’s Secretary General is elected for a renewable two-year term. The elections are held in three phases. In the first phase, members of the organization’s Central Council cast their votes in ballot boxes to specify their candidates. The second phase is held with the participation of all of PMOI’s cadres, who cast their votes in their respective departments. The final phase is held at the organization’s annual congress, where all members confirm the new Secretary General by raising their hands.

Ms. Merrikhi, who has a decades-long career fulfilling different responsibilities in the Iranian resistance, earned the majority of the vote in the first two phases and was sworn in as the new Secretary General after receiving collective confirmation from PMOI members in the September 6 congress.

Ms. Merrikhi hails from the city of Qa’emshahr in northern Iran. Born in 1959, she joined the PMOI after the 1979 revolution, after the overthrow of the Shah regime.

Prior to her new position, Ms. Merrikhi was the coordinator of the offices of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition of opposition forces that the PMOI belongs to. She’s also the deputy chief of the PMOI’s Central Council.

Ms. Merrikhi has been actively involved in the Iranian resistance’s media and broadcasting efforts. She joined the editorial board of Talavang, a PMOI publication in Mazandaran, shortly after joining the organization. She has also served a stint as the head of Radio Mojahed and Simay-e-Moghavemat, the news broadcasting network of the Iranian resistance.

In 1981, after the Iranian regime banned the PMOI, Ms. Merrikhi moved to Tehran, where she coordinated communications between the capital and its branches that were deployed in Iran’s northern branches. In 1984, she joined the PMOI bases in the Iran-Iraq border region, and was soon afterwards promoted to the organization’s Central Council.

Her brother Ali was murdered by the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in 1988.

While expressing her appreciation for the efforts of her predecessors, Ms. Merrikhi vowed to remain true to the PMOI’s goal of establishing freedom and democracy in Iran. “Today, the PMOI, with the help of the Iranian people, is prepared as never before to overthrow the clerical regime,” Ms. Merrikhi said.

Mrs. Rajavi the president elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), welcomed the election of Ms. Merrikhi as the new Secretary General, and described it as heralding the breaking of the spell of repression which will lead to the overthrow of the religious fascism ruling Iran.

Crisis-riddled Iran Sees Opposition Elect New Secretary General

As Iran finds itself engulfed in domestic and external turmoil, the opposition in-exile enjoys the prowess and cohesion to elect a new secretary general.

A new administration in Washington has been ramping up the heat, punishing Tehran for meddling in other states’ affairs and advancing its ballistic missile drive. All the while Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has seen his representative rejected by two senior Shiite leaders in Iraq, the proxy war in Yemen going south and Tehran’s support to maintain Syria’s Bashar Assad in power eating up crucial resources. Internally, the Iranian people are stepping up their protests to significant scales.

In now daily protests thousands of investors are demanding their savings from state-run institutions, and the city of Baneh in western Iran recently witnessed clashes as locals took to arms to protest the ruthless killing of porters by state security forces. In a parallel significant development, the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran(PMOI/MEK) held its congress on Wednesday marking its 52nd anniversary and sitting to elect a new secretary general.

NCRI

Iran Opposition Election: Crowd in Tirana

This process was held in six different cities, including Tirana, the Albanian Capital, where most MEK members are stationed after their long ordeal in Iraq, along with five other countries. Ms. Zahra Merrikhi was elected as the new MEK Secretary General, replacing Ms. Zohreh Akhiyani, who served from 2011. The MEK Secretary General is elected for one two-year term, which can be extended considering the circumstances.

In view of its unique nature and differences from state or party elections, MEK rules and regulations define the election of a secretary general to be held in three different assemblies.

In the first such assembly, held by members of the MEK Central Council on August 20, 2017, an initial 12 candidates were introduced, of which four reached the next stage with Ms. Merrikhi receiving a majority of the votes.

NCRI

Ms. Merrikhi and Mrs. Rajavi

At the second assembly, held two weeks later, senior MEK officials and cadres casted their ballots for the final four candidates, with Ms. Merrikhi leading the vote tally again. The third and final assembly, held on Wednesday, witnessed all MEK members raising their hands and unanimously electing Ms. Merrikhi as the new MEK Secretary General. Born in 1959, Ms. Merrikhi joined the MEK in the years leading to the 1979 revolution. She was summoned and interrogated several times by the Shah’s intelligence service for her activities. Her younger brother, Ali, was killed by the current Iranian government back in 1988. From 2003 onward she served as the coordinator of the office representing Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition of opposition groups including the MEK.

The democratic approach adopted by the MEK in this election process is in stark contrastto that imposed on its compatriots by the ruling clerics of Iran for the past four decades. It also undercuts the oft-repeated, Iran government’s inspired characterization that it has an authoritarian structure. If we were to take the Iran’s presidential “election” into consideration, we would view a selection by an unelected few, far from anything resembling an election in today’s 21st century.

NCRI

Ms. Merrikhi and PMOI Emblem

ran’s so-called presidential “elections,” which banned all women, is a procedure in which all candidates are vetted by a 12 ultraconservative clerics and so-called legal experts, named the Guardian Council, who are directly and indirectly appointed by the Supreme Leader.

All candidates are evaluated for their utter devotion and obedience to the clerical rule and Supreme Leader. Before May’s vote even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who served as the president for eight years and Khamenei launched a massive nationwide crackdown in 2009 to quell any opposition to his engineered reelection, was disqualified from this year’s presidential race. As the political establishment in Tehran sees its founding fathers dying one after another and Khamenei himself battling severe health issues and allegedly cancer, there are serious woes about the future of his rule and the ruling clerics in its entirety. And with conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi – said to be groomed by Khamenei to reach the presidency and eventually succeeding him at his throne – failing to unseat Hassan Rouhani from the presidency, no new face with the necessary majority support is seen to lead this political establishment into its unknown future.

NCRI

Ms. Merrikhi and Ms. Akhyani (previous Secretary General)

It is a complete different story for the MEK leadership, however, as Ms. Merrikhi currently enjoys the support of 18 co-Secretaries General (including seven former Secretaries General) and three deputies from the organization’s younger generation.

Narges Azodanlou, 36, Rabi’eh Mofidi, 35, and Nasrin Massih, 39, all born during or after the 1979 revolution, represent the MEK’s dynamic characteristic and how this organization is able to adapt and deliver young new leaders for this fast-changing world. In short, Merrikhi’s election demonstrates process, structure, depth of leadership ranks, and a genuine and practical commitment to gender equality, especially in leadership positions. “Today, the PMOI, with the help of the Iranian people, is prepared as never before to overthrow the clerical regime,” Ms. Merrikhi said after expressing gratitude to her predecessors and vowing to remain loyal to the MEK’s ultimate objective of establishing freedom and democracy in Iran. Welcoming Ms. Merrikhi’s election, NCRI President-elect Rajavi described this new development as signaling the soon-to-come change of the theocratic ruling in Iran.

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Iran: A regime with no future

                                                              Shahriar Kia

By: Shahriar Kia (Political analyst) 

Iran: A regime with no future

The cabinet ministers of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani received a confidence vote recently in this regime’s parliament. 16 out of 17 ministers were approved after many reports indicated Rouhani reviewed the list extensively with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

However, an evaluation of this slate of names proves this cabinet will render no alternations and represents the very impasse the entire regime is facing. The next four years will, in fact, be worse than the previous.

Foreign Affairs

Mohammad Javad Zarif has retained his post as foreign minister, considering his role in negotiating the nuclear agreement with the P5+1, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Despite Iran’s threats of relaunching its nuclear drive in the case of US President Donald Trump finding the regime in non-compliance with the JCPOA, Rouhani himself has gone the limits to explain the importance of this pact for Tehran.

“My first priority is to safeguard the JCPOA. The main role of our foreign minister is to stand alongside this deal,” he explained.

Although the deal is rightfully criticized for its loopholes and shortages, Iran understands very well how the current circumstances would be far worse.

While claiming the ability to kick-start 20% uranium enrichment in a matter of days, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi made a complete U-turn in emphasizing Tehran’s willingness to stick to the deal in the case of Washington deciding to leave come October.

Such desperate remarks from Iran are made despite the US increasing the heat with new comprehensive sanctions specifically targeting the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Further measures are seen following the Vienna visit by Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the UN, demanding Iran open its military sites to inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Pressures escalated on Iran as international experts such as former IAEA deputy Olli Heinonen and former IAEA inspector David Albright, alongside three other specialists issued a report explaining how the UN nuclear watchdog lacks the necessary tools to probe possible JCPOA violations by Iran.

These experts specifically referred to the highly controversial Parchin military complex located 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran. Iran only agreed to provide samples extracted by its own experts and continues to refuse access to foreign individuals.

Defense

The new Iranian defense minister is Amir Hatami. Rumors indicate Rouhani and Khamenei have chosen this member of Iran’s classic army due to their fear the IRGC being blacklisted as a terrorist entity.

It is worth noting, however, that Hatami joined the IRGC Basij paramilitary force at the age of 13 and has announced his utter loyalty to the IRGC Quds Force and its ringleader, Qassem Suleimani.

The solution Hatami provides to confront the regime’s slate of crises is focused mainly on developing Iran’s ballistic missile program.

“During this period we will expand our missile capabilities, especially ballistic and cruise missiles,” he explained recently.

This is another indication of a policy based on developing missile power, dispatching IRGC and Basij members abroad, and fueling foreign wars. This is a continuation of Tehran’s four-decade long policy of spilling its own turmoil abroad through lethal meddling.

Hatami also enjoys Rouhani’s complete blessing in providing full support for the IRGC.

“He is fully informed of the Defense Ministry and its agenda. My particular request is for an increase in developing particular weapons, especially missiles, considering their importance,” Rouhani explained in recent remarks.

Again, more of the same.

Economics

Iran’s regime is heavily dependent on oil exports revenues. Bijan Namdar Zangeneh has been called upon to continue his role as oil minister, remaining the longest running individual in this post.

A minister for 26 years there are questions over any meaningful development and changes for the better in the country’s oil and gas sector. Iran is now riddled with mismanaged oil wells, uncontrolled extractions and contracts with foreign companies that literally sell-off the Iranian people’s interests.

According to Rouhani’s own remarks, this regime is in desperate need of $200 billion of foreign investment for its oil and gas industry. Two years into the JCPOA, Iran has received only $12 billion in such deals.

The deal signed with France’s Total, valued at $4.8 billion, comes with numerous strings attached and is under the continued risk of US sanctions.

What needs comprehension is the fact that investing in Iran is an economic issue at a first glance, with countless political reservations. No foreign investor is willing to risk money in a country ruled by a regime known for its ongoing warmongering, exporting terrorism, and provoking confrontations throughout the Middle East and across the globe, such as its nuclear/ballistic missile collaboration with North Korea.

Conclusion

All those having their fingers crossed in Rouhani, being provided a second term by Khamenei, are already being disappointed. July witnessed over 100 executions and over 50 others have been sent to the gallows in August. This includes a 20-year-old man arrested at the age of 15 for his alleged crime. Another recent case involved a hanging on August 28th in a prison west of Tehran.

All foreign correspondents are realizing no change is foreseeable from within this regime. The main message of Rouhani’s new cabinet is this regime’s lack of any capacity for any meaningful modification or amendment.

Any entity lacking the ability to change and adapt has no future.

IRAN: AFTER THE JCPOA, THE AMOUNT OF IRAN'S FOREIGN DEBTS?

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

Arabnews, 20 August 2017 - There is a need for a more firm approach toward the Iranian government and its increasingly aggressive foreign policy.Tehran is ratcheting up its interference and interventions in Arab countries. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliates are increasing domestic repression as well, according to the latest reports by human rights organizations.

                                                               Rudy Giuliani 

Support for a firm approach against the Iranian political establishment is increasing in the United States. About 30 prominent American luminaries and former officials issued a joint statement expressing bipartisan support for underscoring the need for countering Tehran regime. Among the signatories were former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

It is crucial to point out that the Iranian government has been causing regional instability, engaging in egregious human rights violations and exporting terrorism and extremism abroad. The letter scolds the Iranian regime for committing these acts.

The view that the regime can be reformed has been proved to be inaccurate, simplistic and unsophisticated. Former US presidents made efforts to moderate Iran’s foreign policy through engagement, diplomacy or concessions. Nevertheless, as history reveals, these efforts have failed.

Any astute observer can see that the core revolutionary pillars of Iran’s foreign policy have not altered since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. In fact, Tehran has become more revolutionary, belligerent and aggressive. The high-profile US personalities and former officials also rejected the idea that the regime can be moderated. As they wrote: “The hope of some Western governments was that time would lead to moderation by the Mullahs or to the emergence of a reformist faction that could challenge the dominance of the clerical regime. The reality has been far different. We agree with the apparent new US policy of ending the previous US overture toward the Iranian regime.”

Iranian leaders are increasingly implementing a sectarian agenda in the region to achieve their hegemonic ambitions. As the signatories pointed out concerning Tehran’s malign regional role: “The Iran-fueled sectarian division of Iraq laid the foundation for the creation of Daesh. Iran today commands and funds upwards of 150,000 IRGC, Shia militia and mercenary armed fighters in Iraq and Syria.”

 Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the ruling clerics of Iran are facing popular domestic discontent. In order to pressure Tehran, the disaffected population and opposition can be a robust tool to capitalize on. The signatories accurately referred to this issue by stating that the “Tehran regime is uniquely vulnerable,” citing chronic economic mismanagement and a fierce power struggle within the regime. “Mounting popular discontent has increasingly become visible in public,” they said, citing growing social calls for accountability for the “mass executions of political opponents, including the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners with a majority of them from the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).”

Altering Iran’s foreign policy can be accomplished through peaceful methods. From the perspective of the prominent American figures, a “viable organization” exists to change the clerical regime. Among other prominent signatories who believe such a mission can be accomplished are former Senator Joseph Lieberman, former National Security Adviser James Jones, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former UN Ambassador John Bolton, former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former DNC Chairman Edward Rendell, former US Marine Corps Commandant James Conway, and former Congressman Patrick Kennedy.

                                                        Maryam Rajavi 

 As they said: “The National Council of Resistance of Iran … has the vision, leadership, and courage to lead the way to the creation of a new Iran. Under the leadership of Maryam Rajavi , a Muslim woman standing for gender equality, which is an antidote to Islamist fundamentalism and extremism, it is working every day to bring about a tolerant, non-nuclear Iranian republic based on separation of religion and state, that will uphold the rights of all.”
Nevertheless, pressure from the US is not adequate to alter the Iranian government’s belligerent behavior and interventions in other countries including Arab nations. More governments and organizations should join the cause. It is the moral responsibility of the international community to embrace the Iranian people’s aspiration for freedom and democracy and to stand against the Iranian government’s suppression and repressions.
In a nutshell, as recognition of the need to counter the Iranian government is mounting in Washington, it is incumbent on world governments and the international community to provide moral support to the Iranian people’s quest for freedom.

ANALYSIS: Is this the beginning of a new era for Iraq without Iran?

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy march during a parade to commemorate the Iran-Iraq war anniversary, Tehran, on September 22, 2011. (Reuters)    
                                                                                                                                                                                                     By Heshmat Alavi

Special to Al Arabiya EnglishMonday, 21 August 2017

The military phase of the fight against ISIS is winding down after the liberation of Mosul, and the battle for the nearby town of Tal Afar is predicted to end soon. This has provided an opportunity for Iraq to begin distancing itself from the influence gained by Iran following the disastrous 2003 war, and returning to its true Arabic heritage.

Iraq was known as a melting pot where Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens lived alongside and in mixed societies for centuries. Prior to Iran gaining its disastrous sway across Mesopotamia, this was a land where the majority of Shiites lived and prospered with their Sunni, Christian, Yazidi and all other religious minority brothers.

Has not the time arrived for Iraq to regain its true position as part of the Arab world, and rid its soil of the meddling of Iran’s clerics?

Long-awaited developments

Iraqi officials have embarked on a new campaign of visiting Saudi Arabia and other Arab Sunni states, signaling long-welcomed changes. The influential Sadrist leader Muqtada was seen in the final days of July meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman.

Only days later Sadr paid a visit to the United Arab Emirates, another critic of Iran’s policies, where he was welcomed as an Iraqi leader by a slate of leading politicians and clerics.

Sadr’s visit rendered a variety of measures by Riyadh, including launching a Saudi Consulate in Sadr’s hometown of Najaf, one of the two holiest Shiite cities in Iraq. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, known as Iraq’s most senior Shiite cleric, his distance from Tehran’s viewpoints and calling for Iraq to practice openness in establishing relations, did not block such a proposition.

Muqtada al Sadr with Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman in Riyadh. (Al Arabiya)

Iran, however, resorted to strong remarks against Sadr for his visits to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The visit was even described by a local wire as an act of betrayal to the Houthis in Yemen.

Iran’s support for the Shiite proxy militias, through arms, logistics and finances, parallel to advisors dispatched by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and Lebanese Hezbollah, have resulted in the humanitarian catastrophe Yemen finds itself today.

Sadr is also planning a visit to Egypt, adding to the list of senior Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the ministers of foreign affairs, interior, oil and transportation who are set to visit Saudi Arabia. Despite investing in Iraq for the past 14 years, Iran has been deprived of visits of such high stature.

No future

Iran’s proxies, while taking the credit for much of the fight against ISIS on the ground, have been accused of law violations and refusing to obey the state of Iraq. Iraqi authorities affiliated to Iran have a very poor report card of being involved in corruption and sacrificing Iraqi national interest in Tehran’s favor.

This became a major issue during the second term of former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who some have even described as Iran’s “puppet.” Maliki is known to have close relations with Tehran and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself.

To make matters even worse, the recent departure of Majid al-Nasrawi, governor of the oil-rich city of Basra located at the southern tip of Iraq, has recently left for Iran. His departure followed being accused of numerous corruption offences by a government transparency committee. Choosing Iran as a destination has left further impression of him fleeing to a safe haven, and Tehran having a hand in Iraqi corruption.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi in Tehran on June 20 2017. (AFP)

Rebuilding cities

As Sadr and other Iraqi officials continue their meetings with senior Arab officials of the region, there are also major talks under way between Baghdad and Riyadh to establish a new alliance that would provide Saudi Arabia a leading role in rebuilding war-torn cities across Iraq.

On August 14th the Cabinet of Saudi Arabia announced a coordination committee to spearhead a variety of health care and humanitarian projects, including building hospitals in Baghdad and Basra, and providing fellowships to Iraqi students in Saudi universities. Opening border crossings and establishing free trade areas between the two countries is also on the agenda.

Riyadh should lead the Arab world in tipping the balance of power against Tehran’s interests in Iraq. The truth is Iran has not carried out any major economic project in Iraq from 2003 onward, due to the fact that the mullahs do not seek the prosperity of their western neighbor.

Saudi Arabia and the Arab world should provide the support Iraq needs after suffering from Iran’s menacing influence that has brought nothing but death and destruction. Evicting Iran from Iraq must come parallel to efforts of ending its presence in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

The main obstacle before the Arab world in establishing a coalition against Iran’s clerics is this regime’s meddling and the IRGC presence across the region. With Iran evicted from Iraq, the void should be filled by economic support by the Arab world for Iraq.

And with the US Congress adopting a bill against the IRGC, Riyadh must take the lead to have all IRGC members, proxies and Iran-related elements expelled from the region. Only such a policy will allow the Middle East to one day experience tranquility and peaceful coexistence.