By: S. Nawabzadeh

Although speaking different languages, no two countries in the world are bonded together by such close historical, cultural and religious ties, dating back several centuries, if not millennia, as Iran and Iraq.
As a matter of fact, the fraternity between the peoples of the Iranian Plateau and Mesopotamia has withstood the test of time, including almost three-and-a-half intermittent centuries of Ottoman occupation of Iraq followed by the anti-people pseudo nationalist regimes that rose and fell on either side of the joint border.
The rootless Pahlavis in Tehran were a British creation and so was the imported Hashemite dynasty in Baghdad as well as the military dictatorships in its aftermath that indulged in jingoism.
Yet so firm are the age-old ties binding Iranian and Iraqi Muslims, colonialist agents failed in their divisive designs, even when the US imposed the 8-year war on the newly-founded Islamic Republic in the 1980s through Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad.
It means, if such an intricately planned bloodbath failed to create bad blood between the Iranian and Iraqi people, could the recently manufactured crises such as burning down of the Iranian consulate in Basra by thugs on the payroll of the US and Saudi Arabia, or the anti-Iraqi propaganda on the Zionist-controlled social media by dubious elements claiming to be Iranians, drive away the two nations from each other!
Certainly not.
Much to the chagrin of the Americans, the Saudis and the Zionists – all three of whom have failed to take control of Iraq – the arrest of perpetrators of the Basra consulate attack, followed by the unity march staged in that port city by throngs of people carrying the Iraqi and Iranian flags, and the composition of the broad-based representative government that is finally taking shape in Baghdad, are indicative of the joint will in Tehran and Baghdad to further cement the time-honoured brotherhood.
One need not harp on the pre-Islamic era when for eight long centuries Iran and Iraq were one single realm standing like a solid bulwark against the eastward expansion bid of Imperial Rome and then the Christian Byzantine Empire.
Neither is there any reason to refer to the Islamic era, including the founding of Baghdad as a cultural-academic melting pot by the Abbasid caliphate with the help of their Iranian viziers, and the dynasties that ruled the one single state of Iraq-Iran in the subsequent centuries till the Ottoman occupation of Iraq in the mid16th century – the Buwaihids, the Seljuqs, the Ilkhans, the Jalayarids, the Timurids, the Qara-Qoyunlo and the Safavids.
Nor is there any necessity to mention regular help from Iran and the Iranian people whenever the people of Iraq staged uprisings against Ottoman rule, or the role of the Iranian ulema in transforming holy Najaf into the world renowned seminary of Islamic studies and Arabic culture.
This is proof of the fact that the strong support provided by the Islamic Republic of Iran to its Iraqi brethren during the reign of terror of Saddam, the brutal American occupation that followed, and the recent US-Saudi abortive bid to take over the country through the Takfiri terrorists, are not some new and unwarranted developments.
In view of these undeniable realities, if the harebrained Americans think they can succeed where the British failed, they are living in a fool’s paradise.
It is but natural for the people of Iraq – both Arabs and Kurds, whether Shi’a or Sunni – to stand beside their brethren in Iran, fully knowing that in addition to their overseas enemy, the US, their chief regional enemy is the Wahhabi cult of the spurious entity called Saudi Arabia, which used to fund to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, the genocide of Shi’a Arab Muslims and the ethnic Kurds.
In other words, the Iraqi people are too mature to be swayed either by Washington’s propaganda tirade to endorse the illegal sanctions against Iran, or the bribes of Riyadh in building a football stadium in Basra and the doling out of a few million dollars of the stolen oil wealth of the deprived people of Qatif, to some suspicious elements.
Therefore, senior Iraqi Lawmaker Intisar Hassan al-Musawi is absolutely right when she says the presence of the American consulate in Basra is a threat to Iraq’s security and sovereignty, as borne out by the recent ransacking of government offices and burning of the Iranian consulate in that city by anti-social elements on the payroll of the US and Saudi Arabia.
So what Iraq’s newly elected Sunni Muslim Parliament Speaker, Mohammad al-Halbusi, said regarding firming of fraternal ties with Islamic Iran and invitation to his Iranian counterpart, Dr. Ali Larijani, to visit Baghdad, should not come as a surprise.
The expected election of veteran Iraqi politician Adel Abdul-Mahdi as the new Prime Minister heading a broad-based representative government of the countries various political, ethnic, and religious groups, will bring more surprises for the US, the Zionists, and reactionary Arab regimes.