Iran has apologized to Baghdad for “excesses” committed by the Iranian visitors in the Zurbatiyah border crossing point. The Office of the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced that he had received from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani a letter of thanks and appreciation to the Iraqi government and people for their hosting of visitors to the Imam Hussein’s death anniversary and that the Iranian ambassador has apologized to the Iraqi Prime Minister. The apology came after the media reports a rare reprimand from the Abadi Government to the Iranian authorities. The so-called apology is aimed for domestic consumption and for beautifying the image of Abadi after he allowed this enormous number of Iranians to enter Iraq without visas or even personal identity documents.
What happened at the border crossing point in the Iraqi province of Wasit is bigger than the issue of an apology. Enormous crowds of reportedly half a million—or one and a half millions—Iranian visitors have entered Iraq without visas, in a rare phenomenon of human flow.
This event, which some Iraqi officials have described as a violation of the sovereignty of their country, puts a lot of questions regarding Iran’s intentions in the region during the next phase. The Iranian authorities, who know very well how to monitor their own people, allowed the gathered crowds to pass Iraq’s borders without visas, although there is a prior agreement requiring the Iranian authorities not to allow those who do not hold a visa to approach the Iraqi borders. The Iranian authorities who have accused the Saudi authorities of failing to manage the hajj season, made a grave offense against a neighboring state allowing about one and a half million visitors to enter Iraqi territories. This could have started a war if it happened in a country other than Iraq. After having given Iran the green light to do what they did in the country, Abadi Government officials made ridiculous statements pledging to prosecute anyone who entered Iraq without a visa.
What showed the bad intention of Iran was that the majority of the crowds did not have Iranian official documents. What they came to the border for was to implement a task that required them not to have personal documents. The Iraqi Internal Affairs ministry, controlled by Shiite leaders, said that the breakdown of security on the border was intentional by the Iranians. It was even reported that the numbers of Iranians who entered Iraq on this occasion had reached nearly three million people. Sunni Iraqi politicians considered the issue a great encroachment against the sovereignty of their country, and accused Iranian officials of using Iraqi cities as part of their country. Some saw it as the new kind of Iranian invasion of Iraq. Some accused the Iraqi authorities of inaction and complacency in stopping the Iranian crowds, comparing between this position and the position on displaced Iraqis who have fled Anbar province for fear of Daesh threats and were stopped by Iraqi security services from entering Baghdad, holding them at a bridge, allowing only those who were ‘sponsored’ by other Iraqis to enter the capital.
The Iraqi Association of Muslim Scholars accused the government of al-Abadi of pursuing a policy designed to annexing Iraq to Iran amid Arab and international silence, but the voice of the concern by Iraqi Sunni were not heard by the rest of the Arabs. The major powers did not intervene when this huge crowd of Iranians entered Iraq, which represents an area of international fight against terrorism. Security officials in these countries did not even inquire about the details of the event, even just to ensure no Sunni or Shiite terrorist elements infiltrated the crowds to support Daesh, Al Qaida or Shiite Mobilization forces in Iraq or even Syria. The Abadi government knows well that tens of thousands of elements of the Revolutionary Guards who were impossible to identify or track inside Iraq were among the crowds.
It is well known that Iran normally exploits religious events to introduce elements of the Revolutionary Guard and intelligence services in Iraq, although they have official visas. Some people still wonder about the sovereignty of Iraq over its territory and its Arab identity, while Iran is carrying out plans to change the demography of Iraq and institutionalize sectarianism in provinces such as Salahuddin and Diyala. Those who are preoccupied with what is happening in Syria have no idea of the crime ongoing in Iraq. The Iraqi authorities have acknowledged the difficulty of finding some 150000 Afghan visitors and getting them out of the Iraqi territory. These are mobilized by the Shiite militias and perhaps also the Sunni ones. Iran is seeking to take possession of Iraq more quickly and then move to neighboring Arab countries.
