July 4, 2014 5:02 p.m. ET
QOM, Iran—Iran is pursuing a delicate
strategy of supporting fellow Shiite Muslims and preserving its
influence in neighboring Iraq—where the government is under siege by
radical Sunni militants—without pushing the confrontation into outright
sectarian warfare.
For the second
straight week, influential clerics, who are appointed by the Islamic
Republic's Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei,
used their Friday sermons to denounce the militant groups and
support Iraq's government. But their speeches steered clear of
explicitly encouraging individual Shiites to act against the Sunni
insurgents.
"We are ready to help Iraq
as they ask for help," Ayatollah Mohammad Saeedi told thousands of
Iranians gathered for Friday prayers in Qom, Iran's religious capital.
The
country has openly sent top military advisers to help the Iraqi
government, and blamed a collection of foreign enemies from Saudi Arabia
to Israel and the U.S. for the violence. It deployed at least three
battalions of elite Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, according to
Iranian security officials—an action Iran's foreign ministry denied.
Yet
it has stopped short of sending in large numbers of its own troops and
discouraged ordinary Iranians from crossing the border to fight or
defend holy sites in Iraq.
Iranians have
been at least as alarmed as Western countries at the rapid advance
through Iraq by the group calling itself the Islamic State, which was
formerly known as ISIS. The militants, who advocate violence against
those who don't accept their religious views, have killed thousands of
Iraqi Shiites and vowed to destroy Shiite holy sites. They also
disparage Iranian influence in the country.
Their
threats to the holy sites are designed to stoke tensions between Sunnis
and Shiites. A successful attack on a major Shiite site could tip Iraq
into a sectarian civil war, as the destruction of a Shiite shrine by
Sunni militants in 2006 did. That prospect has alarmed Iran's leadership
because a larger conflict could bring down Iraq's government, spill
across the border or force Iran to send large numbers of troops into
Iraq.
"We have to make sure this does not
turn into a Sunni-Shiite war," said Hossein Sheikholeslam, an
international affairs adviser to the conservative speaker of Iran's
parliament.
So Iran's government has
strained to lay blame on a collection of enemies, arguing that what it
calls a small number of fighters could only have taken so much territory
with help, including from Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and supporters of the
late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Iran's
influence in Iraq has grown dramatically since the U.S.-led invasion
toppled Hussein in 2003. His Sunni-led government fought a brutal
eight-year war with Iran during the 1980s, and was a check on Iranian
influence in the Middle East for decades.
With
the U.S. occupation eventually assenting to the Shiite-dominated
central government in Iraq led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iran
has become a major power broker across the border. Trade and investment
ties have grown as well, amid the flowering of long-suppressed religious
ties between the Shiite religious capitals of Qom in Iran and Najaf in
Iraq.
Last year, some 2.5 million
pilgrims traveled each way between the two countries, according to the
Pilgrimage Research Center in Qom, and billions of dollars in investment
in hotels, prayer centers and religious donations have flowed with
them.
"Both countries are united. We
don't even think of ourselves as separate countries," said Hamid Reza
Taraghi, who heads a religious foundation operating under the auspices
of the supreme leader. "We've helped Iraq flourish, especially in these
holy cities."
To protect those ties, Iran has openly rushed to aid Mr. Maliki's government with military advisers, weapons and intelligence.
Perhaps
its biggest contribution, referred to only obliquely in Iranian media,
has been helping Mr. Maliki's government overhaul Iraq's lackluster
professional military. Iran has provided advisers and trainers of
zealous and often battle-trained militias formed and largely controlled
by hard-line Iraqi Shiite religious groups with close ties to Iran's
Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran has made
no secret of the presence of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the
Revolutionary Guards' overseas unit known as the Quds Force, inside Iraq
to advise the Iraqi government and its armed forces. It has emphasized
that Iran is willing to provide whatever help the Iraqi government
requests, and news about the conflict is widely broadcast in Iran.
To
justify those outlays, it has played up the need to protect Shiite holy
sites in Iraq and help defend what it sees as Iraq's popularly elected
Shiite government.
Yet at the same time,
the Iranian government has sought to play down the increasingly
sectarian character the Iraqi military is taking on under Iranian
tutelage. And it has sought to stress that the Iraqi government and
military are capable of handling the insurgent's onslaught.
The
drumbeat of Iranian news reports and religious pronouncements has
created a wellspring of emotional support for Iraq within Iran.
"We're
furious about those who insult our beliefs," said Mohammed Vahid
Nikouseffat, a 26-year-old seminary student studying in Qom.
Mr.
Nikouseffat spoke as he entered one of Iran's biggest and most
prominent Shrines, known as Jamkaran. All around the towering domed
mosque thousands of regular Iranians worshipers prayed and sang verses
of the Quran after breaking their Ramadan fast.
Mr.
Nikouseffat said Iranians are ready to help defend the holy sites in
Iraq if necessary. But for now, they must obey their Supreme Leader's
instructions to leave the fight against Iraq's enemies to the
government—and a higher power.
"We believe God will judge them," he said.
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