ERBIL – Nouri al-Maliki, former Iraqi prime minister and ostensibly the ‘yesterday’s man’ of Iraqi politics, has ended a three-day visit to Iran during which he met the country’s Supreme Leader and other top officials. He visited the holy city of Qom, toured Shia shrines, and walked off with an agreement to boost bilateral trade between Iraq and Iran. After he withdrew his bid for a third term as prime minister to make way for Haidar al-Abadi as his successor, his consolation prize was to be appointed as one of three vice-presidents in the new government. The Iran visit nevertheless underlined Maliki’s continuing influence, at least in maintaining Baghdad’s close relationship with Iraq’s influential eastern neighbour. Iranian officials, foremost among them Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, stressed Maliki’s positive role in maintaining stability in Iraq by agreeing to stand down at a critical moment for his country when Islamic State forces were on the offensive. Iran rapidly responded to Iraq’s appeals for weapons and assistance as soon as ISIS seized Mosul in June. It was not until August that the US intervened in the crisis, launching air strikes, to prevent the militants seizing Erbil, the capital of Washington’s Kurdish allies. Khamenei praised the “bravery, authority and management skills of al-Maliki during his term of premiership and hailed his measures to safeguard independence and stability in Iraq and maintain the process of development,” according to the official Iranian news agency IRNA. He said what Maliki did for Iraq during the period of transition of power was a great achievement which prevented the country from falling into a state of instability and chaos. “The history of Iraq will not forget Maliki’s services,” IRNA quoted the ayatollah as saying at their meeting on Monday. It was a fulsome message for a close ally who Tehran dropped at the height of the Baghdad political crisis, after concluding that his continued divisive leadership would lead to an even worse collapse of the government’s ability to rule. “It amounted to a pat on the back for Maliki,” said Sam Morris, research fellow at the Middle East Research Institute in Erbil. “Iran was happy that Maliki stepped down, but for him it must have been as if the rug was being pulled from under him.” Morris did not believe the Iran visit signaled any conflict with the Abadi government over who was in charge of the Tehran file. Abadi himself was in Tehran only three weeks ago for a visit that focused on Iraq’s security crisis and during which he ruled out the need for foreign troops on the ground. That was echoed this week by Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, who told Maliki that Iraq needed no foreign military presence to defend itself against terrorists. “In the fight against terrorism, Iran stands by the Iraqi people and has set no condition for its aid,” President Rouhani told his Iraqi visito. “Maintenance of Iraq’s unity and territorial integrity is important for the Islamic Republic of Iran because a united Iraq can help establish stability in the [Middle East] region,” the Iranian president said. “Maliki is trying to show he still has a role,” Morris told Rudaw. “The visit came at an important point in Iraq-Iran relations that Baghdad wants to maintain. Abadi will want him to encourage this.” The visit coincided with a Teheran conference of businessmen from the two countries.Iranians officials met Maliki to consult on future cooperation between the two countries in the wake of the Abadi visit. Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, head of Iran’s judiciary, told Maliki that bolstering relations and cooperation between the two countries would help restore stability and would consolidate economic cooperation in the region. He said their common enemies had created ISIS to curb the success and progress of the Mulsim nation, according to IRNA. Maliki agreed that “foreign plots are aimed at breaking up Iraq by fueling sectarian violence”.
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