Iraq's energy needs force US to allow it to cooperate with Tehran
From financing the expansion of the vast
courtyards that lead into the Shiite shrines of the holy city of Najaf, to
ensuring that a Tehran-friendly candidate gets the job of interior minister,
Iran’s role in Iraq keeps growing, the New York Times reported.
The US Administration has renewed for another 90 days a sanctions waiver for Iraq to
continue importing energy from neighboring Iran despite the American sanctions
on Tehran, an official with the US State Department told Reuters on
Wednesday.
“Iraq was granted a 90-day waiver to purchase energy imports from
Iran,” the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
This is the third waiver
for Iraq—which depends on Iranian electricity and natural gas imports for part
of its energy needs—that the United States has granted since it re-imposed
sanctions on Iran’s oil, energy, and shipping industries in early November
2018.
At the end
of last year, the US granted Iraq a
90-day extension to the initial 45-day waiver allowing Baghdad to continue
imports of electricity from Iran after the US sanctions on Tehran returned.
Major Iraqi power plants are dependent on Iranian natural gas
supply, while Iraq also imports electricity from Iran, as Baghdad’s power
generation is not enough to ensure domestic supply.
Iraq has
argued that it needs more time to find alternative sources of electricity
supply if it is to avoid more and more power outages, which is one of the main
reasons for protest rallies in
the heart of Iraq’s oil region in the southern city of Basra last summer.
The United States, for its
part, has been urging Iraq to become energy independent, at least energy
independent from Iran.
At his
keynote address at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the
US is encouraging countries to partner with the US for their energy
security.
“We’re reminding them that
we’re simply better to do business with than Russia, China, or Iran,” Pompeo
said, calling out Iran for the energy influence it exerts over Iraq.
“Perhaps there’s no
clearer example than in Iran. Iran uses its energy exports to exert undue
influence all across the Middle East, most particularly today on Iraq. While
the United States is working to develop an independent, sovereign Iraq, Iran is
using its energy to create a vassal state,” Secretary Pompeo said.
Cementing its dominance in
Iraq is a piece with Iran’s regional ambitions, which aim to secure a route to
the Mediterranean through friendly countries, in part so it can ship arms and
support to Hezbollah in Lebanon, continue assisting President Bashar Assad’s
military in Syria and threaten Israel.
Now that Iran has expanded
the Shiite armed groups into a political force, much as they have done with
Hezbollah in Lebanon, Tehran’s new priority is to increase economic ties with
Iraq to offset American sanctions.
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