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Iranian Diplomacy’s interview with Alireza Ayati, a senior expert on Middle Eastern affairs

- It is said that Maleki’s visit to the US was made to gain this country’s support for his third term as prime minister. This is while Obama had said in a press conference that the US reiterates the on-time holding of elections in Iraq. Some Iraqis accuse Maleki of attempting to postpone the elections for two years. How successful will, in your opinion, Maleki be in this regard?

- Since the 2005 parliamentary elections in Iraq and then the 2010 parliamentary elections, Maleki has been the prime minister of this country and right now acts as a bold and capable administrator who has been able to run the country with its complicated and fragile political and security conditions. He has especially been able to safeguard his country against the storm of insecurities and has directed the Kurdish and Sunni parties towards dialogue and negotiation. There is no doubt that he is one of the significant options for the prime ministerial role in the Spring 2014 election. There is also no legal prohibition for him either. Of course, there are criticisms against him by different parties and even some Iraqi religious leaders and there were attempts in the parliament by some factions to adopt a law to forbid the heads of the three bodies to remain in their position three times, but the constitutional court rejected this bill.

The fact that the officials of Saudi Arabia and the Arab states and even the Zionist regime are concerned about the developments in Iraq is due to the policies pursued by Maleki himself and his braveries with regard to the issue of Syria. He took independent and important positions regarding Syria and in the end everybody agreed with him that if the terrorists are strengthened in Iraq, Iraq will be the first country which would be damaged.

Maleki trusts his popular base and has, several times, stated that in the future a government of majority must be established in Iraq so that no party would be able to shut down the cabinet. This shows that Maleki is certain that his party will gain significant votes in the election. Of course, with this volume of forces and advisors in Iraq, the US embassy will certainly exert pressure on different rival parties to choose a western option (like Alawi) for the post of prime minister because Maleki dealt a blow to the Saudi-US-Zionist plan in the developments of Syria and the western countries are looking to punish him.

- The Maleki government insists on receiving modern arms from the US so that it could fight against al-Qaeda and even claims that one of the reasons that it has not been able to defend its borders with Syria is a lack of armaments and apparently the US is not ready to deliver them to the Iraqi government. What are the US’ reasons for this decision onsidering the security agreement reached between the two countries?

- The Americans entered Iraq to dominate the resources and regional weight of Iraq. Saddam was supposed to be overthrown and then they intended to deal with Tehran and Damascus. Now the US sees that Saddam is gone and Iran and Iraq have taken Syria out of the hands of the Saudi-US-Zionist plan. The US is not happy about this. They said that they would leave Iraq but would sign a security agreement to maintain their dominance. Maleki and the Iraqi parliament stood against it and did not allow such an agreement to be signed.

The US-Iraq security agreement was not aimed at fighting terrorism. The US has no problem with al-Qaeda killing the Shiites and the Sunnis and the Kurds. The US’ objective behind signing this agreement was to later use it against Bashar Assad in the borders and overthrow him. It wanted this agreement to exert pressure on Iran by sending anti-revolutionary forces to the neighboring provinces with Iraq. It wanted this agreement to exert pressure on Turkey any time it wished. But Maleki and the parliament did not allow this to happen. Therefore, the US wants al-Qaeda and the Baathists to weaken the government and the parliament and damage Iraq’s security.

Al-Qaeda’s conflict with Iran, Maleki and Syria will be to the benefit of the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia because otherwise they themselves would be involved in these types of conflicts. That is why the young al-Qaeda commander is easily targeted in Pakistan but nothing happens in Iraq and Syria.

- The government of Maleki claims that it mediates between Iran and the US. To what extent has Maleki been able to play such a role?

- Any country which can transform relations between other countries into friendly and good relations should do so. Mediation is a valuable action in international relations, particularly if it prevents a war and seeks the promotion of the interests of both parties. There is no problem if a powerful and effective Shiite government like Iraq mediates between Iran and the US. Nuclear negotiations were held in the capitals of different countries like Baghdad and Istanbul. We welcome any country which could promote the interests of the people of Iran. The Iraqis have good relations with the US and transfer our messages and analyses and even their own points of view. The Iraqis, whether in the parliament or the government, are Iran’s friends and they are trusted. Talebani or Ibrahim Jafari and Maleki and others are all concerned about Iran’s interests and if they have transferred a message or an analysis it has certainly been in the interest of relations between Iran and Iraq, just as Iran participated in the Iran-US-Iraq negotiations to promote the security of Iraq and the interests of the people of this country and it was a positive and constructive mediator.

- The US is unhappy with Iraq because it has allowed Iran to use its territory to send arms to Syria and, in general, Iraq is on Syria’s front. Has Maleki been able to convince the US that he is not on Syria’s front? What are the US’ expectations from Iraq?

- The US claims that Iran sends arms to Syria. This is while the Iraqis landed Iranian planes in Baghdad airport for inspection and later announced that the cargo was medicine or food and not arms. The Iraqis have officially stated to the US that Iran does not send arms to Syria.

The Congress, which of course is motivated by the Zionists and the Israeli lobby, exerts the most pressure on Maleki in this regard. They have even exerted pressure on the White House to stop giving arms to Maleki until the issue of sending arms from Iraqi space to Syria by Iran is clear. It seems that this is more a psychological war which is created against the axis of resistance by the Israelis. The West knows well that Bashar Assad’s remaining in power has nothing to do with the arms but the strong position of 70% of the people who have stood by Assad.

The US let al-Qaeda enter Syria to overthrow Bashar Assad and then planned to kill them, but as in Afghanistan, they will not be able to do this and will be forced to respect a political solution to the Syrian crisis.