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In his June 25, 2020 column in the Iraqi online daily Sotalitaq.com, journalist Mahdi Qassem came out against the pro-Iranian Shi'ite movements and parties in the Arab world, such as the Shi’ite parties in Iraq, Hizbullah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. These movements and parties, which are identified with Shi'ite political Islam, he wrote, have brought upon their countries nothing but ruin, corruption, poverty and unemployment by usurping public funds and neglecting public services. He contrasted them with the "clever" Shi'ite movements in Bahrain and Kuwait, which he said refused to cooperate with the Iranian plots and thereby spared their countries a similar fate.
Mahdi Qassem (Source: aliraqnews.com)
The following are excerpts from his article:[1]
"Everyone knows that the parties of political Islam, both Shi'ite and Sunni… have nearly taken Iraq back to the stone age through their organized plundering of public funds on the one hand, and by neglecting the construction and modernization of the state institutions, the public sector, and the [systems of] education, healthcare and culture on the other hand. It has come to the point where Iraq has begun to resemble some of the African countries, with jungles full of wilds predators and with rampant scenes of ignorance, backwardness and misery. Iraq has become a bankrupt country, to the extent that the government will be helpless to pay the civil servants and pensioners in the coming months.
"The almost exact same thing has happened to the people of Lebanon due to the rule and influence of Hizbullah, with its long, armed and violent tentacles, as part of its alliance with the party of Lebanese President Michel 'Aoun. This alliance is meant to lend some legitimacy to Hizbullah's political blackmail, which is sometimes characterized by thuggish policy and sometimes by 'Big Stick Policy’[2] This is the same coalition that exists in Iraq, where Shi'ite political Islam parties and Sunni Muslim Brotherhood parties have come together to form the most dubious, dangerous and destructive alliance that has ever [threatened the country's] present and future.
"Returning to Lebanon, the stifling financial and economic crises there, and the crisis in [public] services, affect most sectors of society, and are manifested in corruption, poverty, unemployment, bad services, shortages and severe security tension. Hizbullah's sword is held aloft, threatening to behead anyone who opposes it or protests the living conditions and poor services that currently prevail in Lebanon. This is in addition to [Hizbullah's] covert action to suppress the freedom of opinion and expression. The situation is far worse than in the aftermath of [Lebanon's] civil war…
"In San'a, ruled by the Houthis, who are loyal to the Iranian regime, poverty and want, alongside ruin and destruction, have prevailed and continue to prevail and to worsen. The regimes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also played a prominent and criminal role in this, for the Iranian and Saudi regimes tried to settle their scores on Yemeni soil, each side relying on its supporters and mercenaries there.
"The same trouble and state-wide problems may have afflicted Bahrain [as well], had the [Shi'ite] loyalists of the Iranian regime [there] managed to take the initiative, topple the regime and impose an 'Islamic' rule, like the current Islamic rule of robbers and gangs in Iraq. Had this happened, the Bahraini people would have experienced the same shameful and horrific suffering and mental anguish today as the Iraq and Lebanese peoples. But the intelligent and clever Shi'ites of Bahrain listened to reason and managed to spare the Bahraini people, and all sectors of [Bahraini] society, the trouble that is currently afflicting Iraq.
"The same thing can be said about the clever and intelligent Shi'ites of Kuwait. They [too] refused to heed the plots of the Iranian regime [and its attempts] to change the situation [in Kuwait] in its favor by means of some 'ideological' agents and turn it into a ruined back yard of the Iranian regime, full of garbage, refuse, poverty, unemployment, bad public services, deadly diseases and misery…"
