It is important to underline that the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government and the two ruling political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan are free to have a bilateral relationship with Iran that serves their interests and does not hurt the interests of Kurdish movement in Iranian Kurdistan without any political or moral judgment from our party.

Regarding the decision to commemorate Ayatollah Khomeini in the Qazi Muhammed Conference Centre, I personally understand that this decision has angered many people, especially after the outrage it created last year. People that I have spoken to would have preferred that the two ruling parties in Iraqi Kurdistan would have chosen another venue to host the event.

For people that feel that it is not suitable to host such an event in the mentioned conference centre, I would recommend that you contact the KRG and express your opinion.

The election process has been hailed as relatively democratic, despite evidence of fraud (tens of thousands of Kurds was according to reports denied the right to vote). The election results haven’t been announced yet, but whatever the result the different blocs will be forced to negotiate some kind of coalition government.

But beneath the surface of the election process the influence of Iran is evident. Long before the election campaign began Iran provided millions of dollars, campaign materials, political training to several groups and political parties in Iraq in order to influence the election.

Both influential and less influential Iraqi politicians travelled to Tehran before the election to secure Iranian backing and Iran welcomed all of them. The different political organizations that do not have any direct link to Iran attempts to avoid any form of conflict with Iran; everyone knows that a conflict with Iran will have serious consequences for any organization in Iraq.

For most Iraqi politicians Iranian support is vital and Iran is utilizing this need of support to its own benefit. The Iranians are everywhere in Iraq, in the political, economical and social sphere. There is no other country in the region that has as much influence in Iraq.

Iran supports everyone from secular to Islamist to militant groups and from small to large political organization. The strategy seems clear; Iran wants to have influence in all of the different political groupings in Iraq and Iran is some times pitting the different groups against each other and at other times Iran attempts to force them to collaborate with each other when it suits the interests of Iran.

And now that the election is over the political process of forming a government in Iraq will begin and Iran will do everything in its power to secure a pro-Iranian government. Iranian diplomats and secret agents are jockeying back and forward between different political groups attempting to bribe them and if that fails they will try to force them to do what Iran wants.

Based on the United States decision to pull its troops out of Iraq different political groups in Iraq are more inclined to do as Iran wants, because Iran will without a doubt become the major power in Iraq when the Americans leave. The different political groupings in Iraq knows this and this will have an crucial mark on the formation of the next government in Iraq.

Obama’s remarks on the election in Iraq and his decision to pull out the American forces (see video below) might sound as a President keeping his election promise, but in the ears of Iraqi politicians it sounds like a signal to start rethinking their political future and for the Iranians it sounds like another victory.

Iran will also continue to use its influence in Iraq and other parts of the region, like Lebanon, Afghanistan and Palestine, to push back the United States from the region. The Iranians will also use their nuclear program to continue to push for more power and as long as the United States only focuses on Iran’s nuclear program and don’t take pre-emptive measures to halt Iran’s growing influence in the region, the regime in Iran will be able to continue to do as they want in the region.

Read: Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, has died, official media reported on Sunday. He was 87. He had been named to succeed late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader, but quarreled with him in 1989 over the mass execution of prisoners. Instead, the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, succeeded Khomeini after he died later the same year.

Read: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during a Friday press conference in Copenhagen that he would write a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “asking for Iran to be compensated” for suffering caused to its people during the war and for the usage of its resources by Allied powers.

Read: Iranian forces took control of a southern Iraqi oil well in a disputed section of the border on Friday, US and Iraqi officials told AFP. “There has been no violence related to this incident and we trust this will be resolved through peaceful diplomacy between the governments of Iraq and Iran,” a US military spokesman told AFP at Contingency Operating Base Adder, just outside the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

Read: Iraq is protesting an Iranian military incursion and occupation of an Iraqi oil well on its side of the border between the two countries.