Relying on Russian Help, Iran Lays the Groundwork for a Post-IS Iraq

Now that Islamic State (IS) has lost the battle for Mosul, Iraq is preparing for a national election—which the Islamic Republic of Iran hopes will put a friendly government in power. To this end, Tehran is encouraging the Shiite political parties it has long backed to start billing themselves as liberal, non-sectarian, and wedded to a sense of Iraqi identity that transcends religious and ethnic divisions. Amir Taheri explains:

The apparent de-sectarianization of pro-Iran Shiite parties will make it difficult for Ayyad Allawi and other genuinely non-sectarian Shiite politicians, who are hostile to Iranian influence in Baghdad, to appeal to the Shiite majority on the basis of citizenship and uruqah [or “Iraqiness”].

The new de-sectarianization gambit will also put pressure on Kurdish parties at a time when some of them are campaigning for a referendum on whether to declare independence. It would be more difficult to sell the idea of an “independent” mini-state of Kurdistan to international public opinion at a time that Iraq is seen to be moving toward a non-religious democratic and pluralist political system. The gambit will also make it more difficult for Arab Sunni sectarians to garner support in the name of resisting a Shiite sectarian takeover of government in Baghdad.

But, Taheri continues, there is more to the ayatollahs’ plan, as is made clear by Iraq’s notoriously pro-Iranian vice-president, Nuri al-Maliki, during his recent trip to Moscow, where he invited Vladimir Putin to establish “a significant presence” in Iraq as a counterweight to the U.S.:

[Iran’s] strategy is to draw Russia into Iraq as a façade for Iranian influence. Iranian leaders know that the vast majority of Iraqis resent the emergence of Iran as arbiter of their destiny. Russia, however, is seen as remote enough not to pose a direct threat to the internal balance of power in Iraq. Yet, because Russia has no local support base in Iraq, it would have to rely on Iranian guidance and goodwill to play a leading role there.

Read more at Asharq Al Awsat

More about: Iran, Iraq, Politics & Current Affairs, Russia, Shiites

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society