Was Rouhani’s Visit to Iraq a “Historic” Success?

When Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made his first visit to neighboring Iraq on March 11, official news outlets referred to it as a “historic” occasion. Even conservative critics of the president regarded it as a success, chiefly because they viewed it as a way of reducing Iran's reliance on European countries and their goodwill.

Some drew comparisons between Rouhani’s visit to Baghdad and that of Donald Trump, who some reports said “acted like a thief that breaks in at night” and flew in to meet Iraqi officials “with its [airplane] lights out and window shutters drawn out of safety concerns.” Rouhani, on the other hand, arrived in broad daylight, and stayed for three days, during which he signed important agreements. Among them was a settlement regarding the dredging of the shared waterway of Shatt al-Arab 30 years after the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, a plan to lift visa fees for Iranian and Iraqi nationals visiting each others’ countries, and a deal about connecting the railway systems of the two countries.

Rouhani and Iraqi officials also discussed an agreement on a barter system for agricultural produce and medicine to deal with the constraints imposed by US sanctions. To the dismay of Iranian officials, some Iranians have compared such agreements to the Oil-for-Food program that the UN Security Council passed in 1996 to ease the effects of international sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, imposed after its 1991 invasion of Kuwait. Iraq is among the countries that strictly observes current US-imposed sanctions on Iran, which led it to abandon cooperation with Iran on shared oil fields out of fear that it would face punishment. Rouhani’s visit, however, did not resolve that particular issue.

If the agreement on the Shatt al-Arab waterway is implemented, it will put an end to one of the historical discords that triggered the eight-year war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq — and it could improve the lives of the people of Abadan and Ahvaz in Iran and of those living in the port of Basra in Iraq.

Within the framework of the agreement on dredging Shatt al-Arab, the two countries announced [Persian link] that the Al Amaya Oil Terminal would remain an Iraqi terminal despite the fact that an adjustment of the border within the waterway has placed it within Iranian territory. Prior to the meeting, Iraqi officials had made territorial claims to the area where the terminal stands, though not in an official capacity. It is possible that Iran used this matter to help it resolve the Shatt al-Arab border question, which it has now done to the satisfaction of the Iraqis.

 

Two Important Issues Ignored

However, apart from the agreement on Shatt al-Arab, which had been delayed for many years, President Rouhani’s visit failed to address a number of important questions — calling into dispute the description of the meetings as being “historic and highly successful.” The most important of these unresolved issues were entirely passed over during Rouhani’s visit, namely a permanent peace treaty between the two countries and war reparations.

Legally, for more than 30 years Iran and Iraq have been co-existing in a state of “armistice.” In July 1987, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 598, calling for an immediate ceasefire between Iran and Iraq and the repatriation of prisoners of war, and for both sides to withdraw to pre-war international borders. Both countries accepted the resolution the following year, but since that time the two countries have never engaged in negotiations regarding a peace treaty. The absence of such a treaty means that, from a military and legal point of view, it is possible that, at any moment, one side could accuse the other side of violating the “rules of the ceasefire,” in which case, the state of war would be reinstated.

As of now, the Islamic Republic has lost two historic chances to sign a peace treaty with Iraq.

Months after Resolution 598 went into effect, Iraqi forces evacuated parts of Iran still under their occupation. It quickly became clear that Saddam Hussein was preparing to invade Kuwait. Following the invasion of Kuwait, when Hussein’s regime was weakened by international pressure, Iran refused to engage in negotiations to conclude a peace treaty with Iraq.

Now, however, the Islamic Republic has another chance. At the present time, the majority of Iraqi leaders are political figures with close ties to the Islamic Republic. Some even lived as guests of Iran when Saddam was still in power. Furthermore, Iran’s military help in fighting Islamic State (ISIS) drew the two countries closer together. Nevertheless, it appears as though the Islamic Republic is letting its second chance for a peace treaty slip by, allowing an unstable legal situation to continue after more than 30 years.

 

No Guarantee of Stability

It is perhaps difficult to ascertain some of the real and unique reasons the governments of the Islamic Republic and Iraq are unwilling to reach a peace treaty. But the fact cannot be denied that relations between the two countries are very different from the time of Saddam Hussein, when they each regarded one another as threats to their own national security. However, there is no guarantee that relations between Iran and Iraq will remain as stable as they are currently.

In addition to the peace treaty, the Islamic Republic has also remained silent on the issue of war reparations that Baghdad owes Iran  — another opportunity it could lose.

In December 1991, UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar submitted a report to the UN Security Council that declared Iraq to be the aggressor in the war against Iran. Iran has the legal justification to demand war reparations from Iraq, so why have Islamic Republic officials dragged their feet? The leaders of the country used to talk about war reparations from Iraq, but have remained silent on the matter over the last several years.

 

A Deterrent Against Future Hostility

As well as repairing war damages, reparations are important because they play a deterrent role. The best example is what happened after Iraq invaded Kuwait and occupied the country.

In August 1990, two years after the ceasefire with Iran, the Iraqi army occupied Kuwait and Saddam Hussein announced that it had become an integral part of Iraqi territory. An international coalition led by the United States, in what is now known as the First Gulf War, drove out the Iraqi army. When the UN declared Iraq to be the aggressor, the ground was laid for Kuwait to demand reparations.

Less than a year later, in 1991, the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) was established as a subsidiary organ of the UN Security Council. Its first task was to estimate damages that the Iraqi occupation had inflicted on Kuwait. The repayment of damages began while Saddam Hussein was still in power. During the Oil-for-Food program, part of Iraq’s proceeds from the sale of its oil was deposited in a special fund, supervised by the UN, to pay war damages to Kuwait on an installment basis. The UNCC was responsible for managing it, and it divided the damages into categories of fatalities and damages to property, natural resources, public health and the environment. It also set a deadline for the claimants to submit their evidence and the claimed amounts to the commission.

The Iran-Iraq war ended 30 years ago, and such documents and evidence, even if they are not subject to the statute of limitation, are very difficult to locate and verify. In other words, some of the damages caused by the war with Iraq have been repaired, and some of the Iranians who suffered damages during the war are no longer alive. The dearth of evidence does not mean that the subject cannot be pursued, but it does make it much more difficult.

It is interesting to note that during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian government claimed that it had a right to claim damages for World War I and World War II [Persian links], and yet when Ahmadinejad became the first Iranian president to visit Iraq, he did not utter a word about reparations from that more recent war.

President Rouhani, the second Iranian president to visit Iraq, was once a military commander in the Iran-Iraq war but, like Ahmadinejad, he chose to stay silent about war reparations during his time in Iraq. That decision has made his visit less historic than some have claimed, and may invite others to question how solid Iranian officials actually feel when it comes to the Islamic Republic’s clout in the region.

 

Related Coverage:

Decoding Iran’s Politics: Controversy Over Tehran’s Regional Expenses, February 28, 2019

Zarif’s Meeting with Iraqi Minorities and his Empty Promises for Unity, January 16, 2019

Decoding Iran’s Politics: The Formation of the Quds Force, January 3, 2019

Iran’s Multi-Purpose Proxy in Iraq and Syria, March 31, 2018

Iran’s Military Coalition with Iraq and Pakistan: Just a Fantasy?, January 26, 2018