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NAJAF: Seventy-year-old Badria sits at the steps of the gold-domed Imam Ali mosque, crying in disbelief that she has managed to see one of the most revered sites of Shia Islam.
“I thought I would die without seeing it,” said Badria, one of thousands of Iranians who can now visit Iraq’s holy Shia cities freely thanks to the downfall of Saddam Hussein.
Saddam waged war against Iran from 1980 to 1988. He imposed strict limits on the number of pilgrims from Shia-dominated Iran allowed to visit sites they revere such as Najaf and Kerbala.
Now age-old ties between the neighbouring countries, both with majority Shia populations, are being revived. That is a source of joy for many such as Badria, and of new business opportunities for others already reaping the rewards of a lucrative cross border trade.
However, some are worried about Iran’s growing influence. Iraqi Shia stress they want to take control of their own destiny. That means not being too dependent on Iran, which would have an interest in preventing Iraq’s Shias south from becoming too powerful.
Iran’s leaders would not want to see the centre of the Shia clerical establishment move from the Iranian city of Qom back to its traditional home of Najaf.
“If the seat of the clerical leadership were to return back to Najaf, it would be a big loss for Iran’s leadership,” said Haidar Tweij, a Najaf resident.
SMUGGLED GOODS: But for many people the warmer relationship is simply good business.
A burgeoning trade has sprung up with Iranians coming across the border in pickup trucks to smuggle back pillaged copper, weapons and other stolen goods freely available in the many open markets of southern Iraq thanks to postwar lawlessness.
“The Iranian traders are coming here because a lot of the goods that were stolen are cheap,” said Khazem al-Shareefi, a coppersmith in Najaf’s Saha Maidan open market.
As Iraqis seek to satisfy pent-up consumer demand after years of sanctions, many competitively priced, smuggled Iranian goods from pistachios to Parsi Cola flood the markets.
But close religious ties cannot surmount long-held prejudices and a history of wars and conflict.
Najaf residents talk of Iranians who take up long stays in the city’s hotels. They suspect they are secret service agents sent to keep a close eye on developments on the ground.
While local people say they are glad of the security offered by militias such as the Badr Brigade, they worry about its links to Tehran, which supported the group during years of exile in Iran.
Security fears after a car bomb attack last month which killed top Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim and more than 80 of his followers brought the Badr militias out of the shadows.
They mounted night patrols and searches and rounded up scores of Saddam supporters.
Still, many Iraqi Shias say Iran’s religious establishment has done a lot for them, providing funds to help the poor and shelter for those fleeing persecution by Saddam.
That makes Iran the natural shoulder to lean on for Shias who feel Washington has not fulfilled its promises to bring peace and prosperity to Iraq after Saddam’s downfall.
Portraits of Iran’s late Ayatollah Khomeini and leaders of its 1979 Islamic revolution are displayed in stores and popular coffee shops alongside those of Iraqi religious leaders.—Reuters
