Karbala: “Befarmaid,” a worker greeted this correspondent using a Persian expression upon entering a café in this Shiite-majority city — a place of pilgrimage for millions of Shiite Muslims from around the world every year.
A shopkeeper in a grocery store nearby asked whether a customer would like to pay in Iraqi or Iranian currency.
As much of Iran continues to be hit by protests sparked by the 16 September 2022 death in police custody of a Kurdish woman arrested for not wearing “proper hijab”, with over 500 protestors reportedly killed and thousands arrested, Iranian influence still looms large across the border.
Then and now
However, subtle differences from the past can be seen.
In massive 2019 protests across much of central and southern Iraq, there was a great deal of outcry over Iranian influence in Iraq. Iranian consulates were, at the time, set alight by protestors in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala — both cities of immense importance to Shiite Muslims for historical and religious reasons.
Many billboards commemorating Iraq’s ‘martyrs’ in Karbala now have the visage of Iran-linked Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, but few depict the faces of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
‘Martyr’ posters and billboards in popular roundabouts in Karbala now also commemorate Ehab Wazni, an activist from Karbala who was assassinated in the city in 2021, allegedly on the orders of an Iran-linked group.
Soleimani and al-Muhandis were killed in an American drone strike in early January 2020 as they were leaving the Baghdad airport. Commemoratory posters and billboards of the two together are ubiquitous in many areas of the Iraqi capital.
Allegiance to Iran
Many here in Karbala feel that something is owed to Iran, noting that the country came to Iraq’s rescue when others initially hesitated to help in the fight against the Islamic State.
A commander of one of the Shiite Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) with a base in Karbala said in a 21 December interview that “Iran helped us immediately”.
However, he denied that the armed factions that are now on the government payroll would assist Iran in dealing with internal protests or even be asked to do so. He noted that his group answers to the central Iraqi government because this was what al-Sistani, who is based in Najaf, has ordered.
Iran, meanwhile, has accused Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in exile in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which have both political and armed components, of fomenting unrest across the border in their home country.
The PMU commander claimed that, in any case, this was the responsibility of “the Kurds” and that he knew nothing about it.
Though the Iranian government is currently facing one of its biggest challenges in many years, few here believe that there is any likelihood of regime change across the border any time soon.
