The title is not intended to mean that the Arab countries where Iran is intervening were in an ideal condition before Iran came along and ruined them.
Arab tyrants had already done enough damage to their countries through their corruption and dictatorship, which made Iran and other countries intervene.
Did the countries’ situation improve after the Iranian intervention or did their suffering and fragmentation get worse?
Iran has been driving wedges between different religious groups using the colonial strategy of “divide and rule”. It has succeeded in exploiting communal and sectarian conflicts in some countries to tighten its grip on those miserable nations.
I have heard many Arabs, especially those ideologically in solidarity with Iran, say that they do not mind being ruled by Iran after tyrants had turned their countries into complete disasters. “Iran is welcome,” said one of them, “only if it is going to give us what America gave Japan after the last world war”.
It is true that America intervened in Japan after bombing it with atomic bombs, but its intervention was very benign. America contributed to the industrial and economic renaissance of Japan, and even formulated laws for governing various aspects of Japanese life. Only an ungrateful person would deny America’s favours for Japan in the last century. However, is Iran ready to do what America did in Japan?
For more than 10 years Iran has wished for Iraq nothing as much as to see it destroyed, neglected and weak; a pawn or a rear garden it can use, after it was a thorn in its side as a military and strategic threat during the era of the late president Saddam Hussein.
There is no doubt that the US occupation of Iraq did the worst that could ever be done; almost taking it back to the Stone Age, as former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld once warned.
However, what has Iran done even for Iraq’s Shias? It is true that it helped them gain power and keep it, but at the same time it has brought them into fierce sectarian conflict with the Sunnis.
For years now, no week has passed by without the country experiencing terrible sectarian violence, which has taken its toll on political, social and economic life.
Many Iraqis do not get clean water, electricity or even petrol while the country is floating on a sea of oil. What has Iran done to help the Iraqis out of their plight?
Nothing worth mentioning, really, except encouraging communal and sectarian disputes for it to live peacefully, which is a colonial trick. Iran will have only itself to blame when Sunni extremist groups start bothering it and its allies in Iraq; no people receive a coloniser with basil and roses.
It is not surprising that the Iranian role in Iraq is being replicated in Syria, which has been transformed by Iranian and non-Iranian interference in its sectarian conflict.
Because of the Iranian intervention in Syria, dozens of Sunni extremist groups have flocked to the devastated country to fight what they call Safavid colonialism.
If you visit Damascus now you will find that it has turned into an Iranian colony. It is said that more than 40 percent of the city has been bought by Iran to transform it into something like its mini-state in Lebanon. There is talk about building a southern suburb in Damascus like the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburb in Beirut. We can never expect any good for Syria from such Iranian control.
What is happening in Iraq shocks us every day; Iraq will remain a sectarian arena for as long as Iran is there. The situation in Syria will perhaps become worse, especially since more than 90 percent of Syrians do not agree ideologically with Iran. The conflict in Syria will become more intense, as a lot of Sunni Muslims there consider Iran a sectarian enemy.
Not far from Syria, did Lebanon ever settle down with an Iranian mini-state within its territory? It is true that Lebanon has seen sectarian strife since its inception, but that has not got any better because of the Iranian influence. Iran and its group in Lebanon accused Rafiq Hariri of pursuing an Arab agenda that threatened Iranian influence in Lebanon; therefore, they got rid of him.
Didn’t the situation worsen in Yemen after Iran’s supporters took control of the country? Isn’t Yemen’s future shaky? Has it not become a replica of Iraq?
Just as Iran played on sectarian divides in Iraq and turned it into an arena for sectarian conflict, Yemen has turned into a ground for sectarian rivalry because of Iran.
Just as the Islamic State is fighting Iran’s group in Iraq, Al Qaeda and its allies will fight the Iran-supported Houthis in Yemen in a sectarian holocaust.
We don’t care for Iran’s slogans; what concerns us is what our countries have turned into because of Iranian interference, which has made matters worse instead of helping us to get out of the swamp.
It is funny that Iran pretends to be protecting Shia Arabs while in fact it is fighting colonial battles to control the region through its men in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
It is true that regional and Arab forces have also intervened in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, but people usually blame the most influential power in these countries, namely Iran.
What have Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen gained from Iranian interference except devastation and loss and, perhaps soon, fragmentation, disintegration and killings on sectarian and ethnic grounds?
The author is a columnist and presenter on Al Jazeera TV channel
