The world welcomed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, led by the United States and its international and regional allies, because that regime sought to destabilize the region and the world and threatened its neighbors. However, months later, the welcome turned to resentment as Washington made Tehran its proxy/agent in Iraq.
Tehran, in turn, quickly exploited this situation by establishing terrorist proxies, around 60 factions, most of which participated in the government and parliament, and controlled major state institutions. This is the first step in spreading corruption throughout Iraq, which went beyond the theft of public funds to a severe breakdown of security. The situation enabled terrorist factions to control neighborhoods, villages and cities, establishing something tantamount to security enclaves outside the authority of the legitimate state.
The United States allowed Iranian proxies to control public institutions and cause the erosion and plunder of national income. According to international reports, the amount of public funds stolen is estimated at $1.4 trillion, while the poverty rate reached about 17 percent of Iraq’s 46 million inhabitants.
Those who benefited from corruption, mostly followers of the Iranian regime and high-ranking state officials, were smuggling money either to Iran to invest and prop up its ailing economy, or to their groups in Lebanon to finance terrorist operations and invest in institutions affiliated with Hezbollah. Many of them also smuggled the stolen funds to some European countries and the United States.
Many scandals involving these thieves, who have gone unpunished because of their collusion with executive officials, parliamentarians and leaders of terrorist factions, have been widely circulated on social media and in some western media outlets. It is strange that their justification is that state funds belong to no one and are like rain—a right for everyone. T
he truth is that they were into corruption and plunder in the interest of Iran, or rather, as an international report called it, “a network circumventing international sanctions on Iran through a local system of corruption.” Therefore, the campaign launched by the Iraqi authorities against some parliamentarians and officials over the past two days was not surprising.
This campaign is part of a strategy to restore the state’s sovereignty and stop Iranian influence in Iraq, similar to what happened in Lebanon after the ‘framework agreement’ was signed between Beirut and Tel Aviv under auspices of Washington, and weeks before new Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi’s visit to Washington in mid-July. The goal of this anti-corruption campaign is inseparable from the campaign announced by the Baghdad government to disarm militias and limit weapons to the state.
This approach ushers in a new era, led by a young Iraqi prime minister who does not belong to any of the parties that have controlled Iraq for 23 years, transforming it from a regional breadbasket into a desert rife with hunger, poverty and corruption. It is important to note that the United States may have realized that dismantling Iran’s power is the way forward. To atone for the sin it committed in 2003,
America is now trying to put Iraq on the right track, as well as offering an indirect apology to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, which suffered enormously in the hands of the Tehran regime’s proxies over the years, particularly from terrorist operations and the launching of missiles and drones from Iraq. Without dismantling the Iranian regime, the Iranian plague of terrorism and subversion will continue to spread throughout the region.
