By Simon Tisdall (THE GUARDIAN, 30/06/06):
Vast war cemeteries on the outskirts of Tehran bear silent witness to Iran's complex relationship with neighbouring Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians died in the 1980-88 war with Saddam Hussein's regime. Now their well-ordered graves are adorned with plastic flowers, flags and personal mementoes. Each has a glass display case containing a photograph of the "martyr" beneath. They all look so terribly young.The Iran-Iraq war, in which the US, Britain and others quietly sided with Saddam against the Islamic revolution, is mostly forgotten in the west. Not so in Tehran, where, for example, the UN security council's failure to condemn Iraq's initial aggression or use of chemical weapons has fed an abiding distrust of a body that now lectures Iran on the perils of weapons of mass destruction.
The survivors of the war generation, including president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was a revolutionary guard, are now in power. And it is memories of this conflict that help drive Iran's bid for influence and control in post-Saddam Iraq. Officials argue that more than any other country Iran has a legitimate interest in ensuring that those who rule in Baghdad do not threaten their neighbours again.
"Iran wants stability and security in Iraq, there's a consensus on that," said Nasser Hadian-Jazy, a politics professor at Tehran university. "It wants to protect the Shia shrines, maintain the borders. It wants to ensure that Iraqi territory is not used to make attacks on Iran." To maintain its advantage, Tehran also wanted a government in Baghdad that was neither too weak nor too strong, he said, an assessment echoed by western diplomats.
Iran's leaders paraded their influence with Iraq's dominant Shia community during a high-profile visit to Tehran last week by Abdul-Aziz Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an organisation with roots in Iran that runs the powerful Badr brigades militia. Mr Ahmadinejad urged deeper political, economic and cultural collaboration. That may only underscore the concerns of Iraq's Sunni minority about Iran's cloying embrace.
The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, used Mr Hakim's visit to reiterate Iran's call for "foreign occupation forces" to leave Iraq. Withdrawal was a "prerequisite" for Iraq's national security and Iran's, too, he implied. As part of its bid for regional leadership, Iran will host a ministerial summit of all Iraq's neighbours plus Egypt on July 8.
Officials flatly reject British assertions that Iran has assisted Iraqi insurgent attacks, saying violence does not serve Iran's interest. But it has withheld border security cooperation with British forces in Basra, a western diplomat confirmed. Hamid Reza Asefi, the foreign ministry spokesman, claimed in turn that the US was continuing to assist the Iraq-based Mojahedin-e Khalq and its political wing, a terrorist grouping formerly backed by Saddam and linked to numerous outrages inside Iran.
"The Americans are shouting about terrorism. But on the other hand they have close links with a terrorist group," Mr Asefi said. "This is the most hated group in Iran. They are definitely trying to destabilise our security, directly and indirectly."
The US was also stirring up trouble among Iran's Kurdish, Azeri and other minorities with "British guidance", he claimed. "Our intelligence say this foreign intervention is quite clear. US interference and meddling is quite obvious."
All the same, Iran's leaders were grateful to the Bush administration for ridding them of Saddam, said Aliakbar Rezaei, a senior diplomat, with an ironic smile. "We're very thankful to the Americans. They paved the way for us in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Lebanon, too - our influence has increased due to the Syrians leaving. They've pushed up the oil price. Thank you!
"The Americans are also helping us establish a common identity in the region. Iran is closer to Egypt and other Arab countries because of the common enemy we share. The Arabs and Muslims were not unified. But the US has achieved this. They've done a lot for us."