By Struan
Stevenson
Oct. 24 (UPI) -- The interference of the Iranian
terrorist commander Qasem Soleimani in the internal affairs of Iraq has reached
scandalous proportions that should sound alarm bells in the West.
It has emerged that the general, who commands the
terrorist Quds Force, responsible for foreign operations by Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, orchestrated the reoccupation of the oil-rich city
of Kirkuk and many other Kurdish regions in Northern Iraq.
Kirkuk and other disputed areas bordering Kurdistan had
been held by the Iraqi Kurds for the past two years after the Kurdish Peshmerga
military force successfully ousted the Islamic State. The Americans recently
listed the IRGC as an international terrorist organization; the Quds Force has
been on terrorist blacklists for years.
The Iraqi federal government had been reeling from the
apparent takeover of Kirkuk by the Kurds. There was also increasing tension and
splits within Kurdistan itself, with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of
the two main parties controlling the KRG and the main opposition to Barzani's
ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party.
It now seems that some of the leaders of the PUK, close
allies of the Iranian regime, met with Soleimani in the city of Sulaimania the
day before the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered Iraqi military
forces and pro-Iranian militias, such as Hashd al-Shaabi, to reoccupy Kirkuk.
Barzani, his party and many Kurdish leaders and parties have accused some of
the leaders of the PUK of betraying Kirkuk and the martyrs who died rescuing
the city from IS.
Many of the PUK's senior officials and members of the
Peshmerga have condemned those leaders who have betrayed them.
Soleimani had issued repeated warnings to Barzani to
withdraw the Peshmerga from Kirkuk or face a fierce Iraqi government offensive.
That an Iranian general can so blatantly interfere in the internal affairs of a
neighboring country has served to expose the vice-like and malevolent control that
the clerical regime has now wrought over Iraq. It has emerged that Soleimani
had visited Kurdistan at least three times this month, allegedly telling the
PUK leadership that his brutal, pro-Iranian Shi'ite militias would drive the
entire Kurdish population into the mountains if they ignored his advice to
abandon Kirkuk.
These were not empty threats from a terrorist commander
with a reputation like Soleimani. The Iranian general has personally supervised
some of the worst atrocities committed in Syria, where more than 70,000 mostly
young Afghan refugees, have been sent by the mullahs' regime to bolster Bashar
al-Assad in his blood-encrusted civil war.
Soleimani has also advised the vicious Houthi rebels in
Yemen and the terrorist Hezbollah in Lebanon. But his primary efforts have been
directed against the Sunni population of Iraq, where the ruthless militias
under his command have waged a genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing in
Fallujah, Ramadi and Mosul.
Such is Soleimani's growing influence as a key pillar in
the Iranian regime's aggressive expansionist policy in the Middle East, that he
now reports directly to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, bypassing
the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Abadi is now like a rabbit caught in the
Iranian regime's headlights, watching helplessly as control of Iraq's armed
forces has been almost entirely conceded to the clerical regime.
Now, with the reoccupation of Kirkuk orchestrated and
commanded by Soleimani, it appears as if Iran has struck a deal with elements
of the PUK to further their interests in Iraqi Kurdistan. This inevitably will
sow fresh seeds of conflict in an area already torn by tension and division.
But Kurdistan is fertile ground for Soleimani. Fomenting
civil conflict has been his core strategy in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.
The mullahs have become experts in stepping over the corpses of tens of
thousands to plant the Iranian regime's flag in increasing parts of the Middle
East.
It is perhaps significant that only a few days after the
IRGC was designated as an international terrorist organization by the U.S.
Treasury, creating huge problems for the Iranian regime where the Revolutionary
Guards control over 70 percent of the economy, that Soleimani launched his bid
to orchestrate the reoccupation of Kirkuk. His show of strength in Kirkuk
represents an outright provocation to the Americans, who must now prove to the
world that Soleimani and his terrorist force cannot be allowed to subvert the
rule of law.
This article was first published by upi
Struan Stevenson is president of the European Iraqi
Freedom Association. He was a member of the European Parliament representing
Scotland (1999-2014), president of the Parliament's Delegation for Relations
with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14).
He is an international lecturer on the Middle East.
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