On Saturday, al-Sharqiya TV cited a Newsweek report that the Iranian regime has enough influence in Iraq to meddle in the country’s affairs long after a US withdrawal.
According to Newsweek, the Iranian regime’s new envoy to Baghdad, Hassan Danaifar, is a senior ranking official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He also came close to being arrested when in early 2007 American forces raided an Iranian commercial office in Erbil north of Iraq, according to the news channel.
Last week, the Vice President of Iraq, Dr. Tariq al-Hashemi, who is also a senior leader in the al-Iraqiya coalition, has said that the coalition is the broadest one in Iraq and should be able to form a new government. He dismissed claims that an Iranian regime-inspired coalition is larger than al-Iraqiya.
“We are focused on our commitment to the voters,” al-Hashemi said in reference to al-Iraqiya’s election victory in March. “We are specifically concentrating on the issue of change.”
“Al-Iraqiya has reached agreements on its right to form a government and [the list’s leader] Ayad Allawi has been introduced by the list as a candidate for premiership,” he said, according to Nina news agency on Wednesday.
Another al-Iraqiya leader was also quoted by al-Sharqiya TV on Saturday as saying that the Iranian regime is deliberately obstructing the creation of a new government. “This is meant to raise the Iranian regime’s chances of controlling Iraq’s political landscape.”
Osama al-Najifi added, “Al-Iraqiya still insists on its legal right to form the next government.”