IRAQ - Iran's Regional Gains.

In recent weeks, President Bush and US military officials have increasingly accused Iran of meddling in Iraq's affairs. But from Iran's perspective, given its long-standing interests in Iraq, it is the US which is meddling in its backyard.

From the start of the US occupation of Iraq, at least some in the Bush administration saw an opportunity to curtail the influence of Iran's radical Shi'ite leaders by producing an alternative, a moderate centre of Shi'ite Islam which The New York Times on Feb. 18 said "would effectively neuter Tehran in ideological, political and strategic terms".

This was clear to the leaders of Iran's Shi'ite theocracy, whose paramount priority since they took power in 1979 has been to preserve their revolution and their grip on their own country. Faced with more than 150,000 US troops next door and a White House which pursued a policy of pre-emptive war, Iran's leaders moved quickly to try to prevent the US from gaining a permanent foothold.

The New York Times quoted Talal Atrissi, a researcher and writer on Middle Eastern affairs based in Lebanon, as saying: "Iran's policy in Iraq works to prevent the US from feeling safe and secure. It works to prevent the formation of a pro-American Iraqi government, in favor of at least an Iraqi government that does not feel enmity toward Iran". While the US sees in Iraq a venture that will affect its foreign interests for years to come, Iran sees an occupied neighbour with close religious, cultural, political and economic ties. Though Iran is mostly Persian while Iraq is mostly Arab, both have majority Shi'ite populations which have mingled, religiously and culturally, for centuries.

The NYT quoted Reza Alavi, a historian and a former managing editor of The Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review, as saying: "We have been there for thousands of years". Alavi said his own grandfather - like many Iranian Shi'ites - was buried in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf.

Atrissi said: "The Iranian historic, religious, economic ties with Iraq make Iran keen on preventing the US being the sole authority in Iraq. They feel a duty to preserve these ties, and to protect their national security, which is threatened by the US presence in Iraq".

In strategic terms, the US failure to secure its position in Iraq has presented Tehran with a rare opportunity to recalibrate the balance of power in a neighbourhood which had long been hostile to its aspirations.

Before 9/11, Iran was virtually surrounded by the Sunni-dominated states of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, with Turkey, a NATO member, on its northern flank. Now, with the initial rout of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the removal of Saddam, its most powerful and fearsome competitors, Iran is trying to assert itself as the dominant regional power.

In defiance of the UN Security Council (UNSC), the Iranian theocracy has proceeded with a nuclear programme which it says is for peaceful purposes. Iran has strengthened ties with Syria, built the Shi'ite militia Hizbullah into a state within a state in Lebanon and offered support to the radical Palestinian group Hamas. But the cornerstone to its regional plans lies in Baghdad.

In economic terms, Iran has an interest in a stable, Tehran-friendly Iraq. For decades, while Saddam was in power, Iraq was an economic obstacle for Iran, a wall blocking trading routes and diplomatic ties with its Arab neighbours. The chaos in Iraq still means that Iran's trade with Syria has to be routed through Turkey. But Iranian officials say they hope someday to link the railroads of Iran and Syria with Iraq's, redrawing the economics of the region.

Yet Tehran's interests in Iraq cut much deeper than the economic. They range from its ideological desire to spread its influence throughout the Arab world - part of the so-called Shi'ite revival - through its connection to the people and holy sites of Iraq.

Farzaneh Roosta'ee, foreign editor of Shargh, a popular reformist daily in Iran which the government shut down in 2006, says: "Iran and Iraq's national interests are intertwined. Both geographically and religiously, the two countries have many common interests. No matter how much Americans try, they cannot separate these two countries from one another. It won't work".

The connections extend to the political sphere, as well. Iraq's two dominant Shi'ite parties, al-Da'wa al-Islamiya and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), have deep roots in Iran, where many Iraqi Shi'ite leaders fled to escape Saddam's violent repression of Shi'ites, which intensified after the Iranian revolution.

Several top Da'wa leaders - including PM Maliki and former PM Ibrahim al-Ja'fari, along with SCIRI leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim - lived for years in Iran before returning to Iraq after the US invasion. SCIRI was actually founded in Iran in 1984, and its armed wing, the Badr Brigade, fought with Iran in the long, bitter war against Iraq in the 1980s.

There are deep spiritual connections, centred in Najaf and Karbala, the Iraqi cities which have for centuries been central to the Shi'ite faith. Long before the Iranian city of Qom grew into a hub of Ja'fari Shi'ite learning, Najaf was the centre of thinking for the Ja'fari faithful.

In the early 1900s, the religious scholars in Najaf effectively exported what came to be known as Iran's constitutional revolution. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini lived in Najaf for 12 years during his exile before returning to lead the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the installation of the theocracy.

Links to Iran's religious and revolutionary identity, combined with the presence of US troops in Iraq and thousands of NATO forces in Afghanistan, are more than enough justification for Iran to try to counter US influence next door.

Atrissi said: "It is not logical to have an American presence in Iraq, and Iran sitting passively, waiting for the formation of an anti-Iranian Iraqi government. From the Iranian perspective, Iran is a country defending its national security".