The Iranian regime is playing an “unhelpful” and “very damaging” role in Iraq by furthering sectarian tensions, a former U.S. Ambassador in Iraq says.
In an interview with RFE/RL’s Ryan Crocker said: “It seems to me that the Quds Force [a branch of the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards], at least, is pursuing a policy aimed at a permanent division of Iraq into a Sunni area, a Shi’ite area, and a Kurdish area.”
The IRGC’s commander, Major General Soleimani, has had a visible presence in Iraq in recent months.
Crocker said he believes that for Qasem Suleimani and some other Iranian veterans of the 1980-88 war with Iraq “This [current state of affairs in Iraq] is the chance to obtain that ultimate victory that eluded them back in 1988”.
“Permanent victory would be a permanent division of Iraq — never again could a completely divided Iraq threaten Iran as it did in 1980.”
Crocker believes that the policy was likely to backlash “because an Iraq divided along ethnic and sectarian lines, I think, poses a threat to Iran’s own internal security over the long run.”