Comment: Those, including President Trump, who think of the Shia community in Iraq as a monolith in the pocket of Iran are making an over-simplistic, ahistorical mistake, writes Paul Iddon.

When Saddam Hussein was deposed by the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Baathist and Sunni Arab-minority rule were simultaneously ended. For the first time in Iraq's modern history, the country's Shia Arab-majority were elevated to a position of power.

This was welcomed in Tehran - an Iraq unlikely to threaten them again. They were correct in that assessment.



However, in the carnage of the post-Iraq War era an all-too common narrative has surfaced. That Shia-governed Iraq has become more-or-less a vassal of Tehran, that the Americans blundered into that ancient country and essentially, inadvertently, ended up handing it to Shia Iran on a silver platter when they withdrew.

This is overly simplistic for numerous reasons. It is true that relations between Iraq and Iran are the best they have been in a long time. It's also true that Iran has significant influence in today's Iraq compared with when their enemy, the Baath, ruled the country with a brutal iron fist.



It's not true, however, that Baghdad has become a proxy of Tehran, happy to do its bidding in the region.

It's not true, however, that Baghdad has become a proxy of Tehran, happy to do its bidding in the region





Nevertheless, this narrative has gained a lot of traction. US President Donald Trump seemed to enunciate this simplistic point of view recently when he dismissed Baghdad, scoffing: "There is no government in Iraq. The so-called government in Iraq went to Iran to meet with Iran. Iran is going to take over Iraq. That's as simple as that."

The president has also tweeted: "Iran is rapidly taking over more and more of Iraq, even after the US has squandered three trillion dollars there. Obvious long ago!"



A curious comment - considering that Iran's favoured Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, stepped down, partially under US pressure, back in September 2014.



Iraq also explicitly said it would not take sides in the current dispute between Tehran and Washington - surely not the behaviour of a country in Iran's pocket.



The dangers of this myth is that it bears uncanny resemblance to the flawed theory espoused during the Vietnam War. That Vietnam was at risk of falling into the Communist bloc if South Vietnam fell to the Communist north.



The so-called Domino Theory promoted by the American hawks back then insisted that should the Vietnamese communists win, they would fall in line with the Communist Chinese and expand across the region swallowing up America's regional allies.



Robert McNamara, secretary of defence under both Presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson, recalled, in the 2003 documentary film Fog of War, learning about how the age-old rivalry between Vietnam and China essentially guaranteed that the Vietnamese would never sacrifice their independence to the Chinese, even if they were both communist nations.



Indeed, one of the first major conflicts Vietnam fought after the American withdrawal was a bloody border war against China, which protested Vietnam's intervention against the Khmer Rouge, its ally in neighbouring Cambodia. Today, US relations with Vietnam are cordial and Washington even lifted its arms embargo on Vietnam last year to help it defend itself against potential Chinese aggression.

Iraq remains a distinct and independent nation and its Shia majority is not a harmonious monolith who will naturally fall in step with the whims of the theocracy in Tehran