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Iran-Iraq friendship pact
The only way to secure a peaceful and thriving region June 10, 2004
iranian.com
Over one million dead and numerous mutually inflicted
tragedies later, it is high-time that Iran and Iraq put aside the
bitterness
of their pitiful shared history and sign a friendship pact that
will promote future peace and prosperity for both nations. This
is the very same path that France and Germany took in 1963. In
that year, General Charles de Gaulle, President
of the French
Republic, and Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of the Federal Republic
of Germany agreed to the process of reconciliation between their
two nations in order to bring an end to an age-old rivalry and
start a profound peaceful transformation in the relations of
the two countries. A relationship that was marred by immeasurable
suffering
the two sides inflicted upon each other dating back to the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and ending with the defeat and occupation
of Germany
in 1945.
Iran and Iraq must accomplish the same. The fall
of Saddam, very much like fall of the Third Reich in Germany, has
provided a
unique historical opportunity for its neighbor, which should
not be missed.
The Baathist would have never accepted a close partnership
and a meaningful peace with Iran, then again nor would the current
or any future government of Iran ever-accepted Saddam and his
ruffians as friends.
The fall of Saddam (God bless Paul Wolfowitz and
AIPAC for this) has allowed the emergence of Kurdish and Shia segments
of Iraqi
society, which view Iran as a natural friend - or at least a
counterweight to the Sunni domination - and therefore advocate
a close relationship
with her.
The window of opportunity for this friendship pact
should not be closed despite the recent fall of Ahmed Chalabi,
the assassinations
of Ezzedine Salim, and the killing of Ayatollah Hakim (all strong
advocates of close relations with Iran). The resurrection of
the neo-Baathist and Sunni minority with tacit American approval
should
be viewed as an eventuality and a geopolitical fact not necessarily
a return to days of animosity and open hostility between the
two neighbors.
In short, the future of Iraq will be that of Lebanon,
in which each ethnic group will dominate its own geographic sector
but none
will able to fully dominate the other or the whole of Iraq. Yesterday’s
Christian Phalangists of Lebanon are today’s Iraqi Sunnis,
traditionally powerful but today, humbled and defeated. For the sake of future long term peace between Iran
and Iraq, the Sunni minority should never be allowed to dominate
again, but instead
they should remain weak as the Phalangist are in Lebanon today.
Nevertheless they should not be excluded in the future of Iraq
either, nor should they be sidelined permanently from the political
scene. That will only allow the growth of Wahhabi extremism within
the Sunni population, which in turn will never accept a treaty
of friendship nor a close partnership with Iran. Besides, the
Wahhabi takeover of the Sunni nationalist mantra will only provide
a new
excuse for further American hegemony over Iraq, becoming another
stumbling block to any rapprochement between Iran and Iraq.
 Despite all these potential obstacles and an uncertain
future, Iran and Iraq ought to realize after so much bloodshed
that a
close partnership in all political, economical, and cultural
venues is
the only way to secure a peaceful and thriving region in which
future generations can build a solid and enduring union similar
to what France and Germany have today.
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