The Iranian regime , predominant of Iraq , do not miss any opportunity to prove through its arrogant practices that Iraq after 2003, is subject entirely to the Iranian influence .In the twenty-eighth of August , Iranian naval police detained Iraqi ship, “Hussein,” as it was leaving the Iraqi port of Abu Flus in Basra, the crew of the ship was escorted to the Iranian side. But it is interesting and strange in this detention, which may be a precedent in maritime history that was inside Iraqi territorial sea, which is clear and explicit a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 which entered into the actual implementation in 1996. this detention is an advanced stage of the arrogance of the Iranian regime in dealing with Iraq and its destiny. This arrogance is not in need to carry out the pirating to the Iraqi ship on the high seas, or to detain it in case of passing through its marine areas such as its regional sea , or through its adjacent region , or its economic area, or its continental shelf, but Iran wanted the detention of Iraqi vessel to be in the territorial sea of Iraq, as a shape of power surplus of the Iranian regime towards Iraq after 2003, and expressing of the disregard of Iranian regime to the Iraqi sovereignty, and an extension of the existing policy of Iranian hegemony towards Iraq for years
This clear violation of Iraq’s sovereignty on its sea field by the Iranian Marine Police is not the first of its kind, noting that the police since 2003 and to this day had detained Iraqi fishermen . But this time it was evolved and became a threat as it is no longer confined to the detention of fishermen, but on Iraqi vessels inside Iraqi territorial sea! This detention if passed by the Iraqi government unnoticed, and there will be no formal protest by the Iraqi government, it will expose the foreign trade ( Iraqi export, import ) to the risk, noting that one can imagine or expect that the Iranian naval police detain a ship or several ships carrying with Iraqi oil, which is Iraq’s economic lifeblood, heading to world markets via the Arbian Gulf, and if this matter occurred , it would deepen Iraq’s sever economic crisis , not to mention the political, security and military crises. It also would put it in critical situation and to be shown in the appearance of weakness and an inability to take any diplomatic or economic action against the Iranian naval practices, and vice versa for the import process. In this context, we wonder? Is the Iranian regime need to do this detention in order to prove its influence on Iraqi state? Iraqi political system, which was established after 2003, is plundered politically, economically , security and military by Iranian regime . Or that this attack is a message to the Gulf states that its vessels and steamboats passing through the Strait of Hormuz will not be away from any Iranian harassment in the event of escalating the level of tension of the Iranian regime’s relationship with the Arab Gulf states?
From the standpoint of objective political analysis , what was done by Iranian naval police in the detention of the ship and its crew described as a violation of Iraqi maritime sovereignty, but from the standpoint of the Iranian system based on biting Iraq does not understand the detention that way, and the statements of officials of the Iranian regime are the best proof of that and among of these statements, the statement of Ali Yonsei , Iranian President’s Advisor for nationalities and sectarian minorities , who said in March 2015, saying: “Iran today has become an empire as it was throughout history and its capital Baghdad now, which is our civilization and our culture and our identity Center today as in the past,” he said, referring to rebuild the Persian Sasanian empire before Islam, which occupied Iraq and made Ctesiphon its capital . The statement of Hassan Hani Zadeh, director of Mehr News Agency in March of that year when he said: “The time has come for the people of Iraq to say its last word and to choose between false ignorant Arabism and real Islam and clean its robe from the dust of the Arab humiliation, that the Iranian and Iraqi people linked by religious and historical ties despite disputes in relations through historical stages. ” these two statements are “tip of the iceberg” of the entire Iranian statements that see Iraq as an integral part of it, and therefore the detention of Iraqi vessel in the maritime area of Iraq is not an embarrassment for the maker of the political decision in Tehran since it sees in the Iraqi maritime domain as an extension also to its field.
In November of the last year , thousands of Iranians visitors stormed into , who do not have an entry visa for Iraq, “Zurbatiyah” border port in Wasit province, which lies in central Iraq under the pretext of the revival of “mourning” of Imam Hussein, where they evoked chaos caused material losses and casualties among the border guards , noting that the Iraqi Interior ministry did not issue any protest note only accusation to the Iranian government of deliberately carrying out of the incident of intrusion to let the Iranians to enter Iraq without visas. This behavior is a violation of the land area of Iraq. Thus the detention of Iraqi ship, “Al-Hussein ,” a few days ago was actually the violation of the Iranian regime to the Iraqi maritime domain , and nothing was left to the Iranian regime only the violation of the Iraqi airspace to complete the sides of the right-angled triangle violated of Iraq’s sovereignty .
Rawabet Research and Strategic Studies Center