Iran has always had problems gaining a foothold among Sunni and secular forces in Iraq. Previously, there were attempted contacts with the Sunni Islamist Tawafuq coalition, which participated in Shiite-led government at times when many Sunnis continued to boycott the entire post-2003 political process. This year, though, Tawafuq is not even running.
Iran’s relations with existing Sunni-leaning lists are minimal. The list of parliament speaker Usama al-Nujayfi is firmly in the Turkish camp whereas that of deputy premier Saleh al-Mutlak is perhaps the most outspoken one in terms of its criticism of Iran. That leaves only Ayyad Allawi, whose party has historically been critical of Iranian influence in Iraq, though perhaps somewhat less vociferously than Mutlak and his allies.
The government negotiations of 2010 actually saw unprecedented attempts by Allawi to reach out to Iran-friendly Shiite leaders critical of Maliki like Ammar al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, but it remains difficult to envisage Allawi’s electorate embracing any sort of close rapprochement with Iran.
It is noteworthy that this year, despite growing regional tension, Iran has refrained from pushing the de-Baathification issue to the forefront of Iraqi politics. It is possible that Iran understands that a complete alienation of Iraqi Sunnis may push them wholesale into the hands of Al-Qaeda-inspired hardliners in Syria such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the balance of power in Syria and the region alike.
It is noteworthy that during the continuing crisis in the Anbar province of Iraq that borders on Syria, there has been a constant stream of local Sunni politicians who have announced their interest in cooperating with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad instead of becoming immersed in some medieval-inspired transnational statelet formation in the Iraqi-Syrian borderlands. Whether Iraqi Shiite leaders and Iran are able to use that potential in a positive way will only be known when the votes of the 30 April elections have been counted and the Iraqi cabinet formation negotiations begin.
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