Iran's Rafsanjani: US trying to "enslave" Iraq with security agreement

Rafsanjani's reference to "the Islamic world" not allowing the US to stay in Iraq is farcical. It is redolent of the "pan-Arabism" once espoused by Gamel Abdul Nasser and which was destroyed in theory and practice after the Israeli clobbering of 5 different Arab armies in 1967. That Saudi Arabia, Sunni Capitol of the world is holding a summit on Islam, Christianity and Judaism should tell you something about Islamic unity. The Sunni hate the Shia and vice-versa. Each has different agendas. The only reason that Iran is at all concerned is that Iraq could be used as a launching pad for military action into Iran, should circumstances warrant. And that is an option that, for diplomatic purposes, like the Queen in a chess game, has to remain on the table to make sure that Iran knows that we, the US and the rest of the world, mean business when we say that we will not allow a nuclear weapon or the systems to deliver one.

Randy Shiner



Iran's Rafsanjani: US trying to "enslave" Iraq with security agreement

The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia: One of Iran's most powerful cleric-politicians said Wednesday the United States is trying to "enslave" Iraqis through a long-term security agreement being negotiated between Washington and Baghdad, and he vowed the Islamic world would stop the deal.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told a gathering of Muslim figures in the holy city of Mecca that the U.S. "occupation of Iraq represents a danger to all nations of the region" and warned that the security deal would create a "permanent occupation."

The comments were the strongest and most high-level public condemnations of the potential security deal by an Iranian official. Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran, heads two of the country's most powerful clerical governing bodies, the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts.

"The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves before the Americans, if it is sealed. This will not happen. The Iraqi people, the Iraqi government and the Islamic nation will not allow it," Rafsanjani said.

Rafsanjani was speaking at a Saudi-sponsored conference aimed at unifying Muslim voices before an interfaith dialogue that Saudi King Abdullah wants to launch with Christian and Jewish religious figures.

Iran has been critical of the security agreement, largely in private talks with Iraqi officials. The deal, which the Iraqis and Americans hope to finish in mid-summer, would establish a long-term security relationship between Iraq and the United States, and a parallel agreement would provide a legal basis to keep U.S. troops in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Supporters believe the deal would help assure Iraq's Arab neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, that Iraq's Shiite-led government would not become a satellite of Shiite-dominated Iran as American military role here fades.

But public critics in Iraq worry the deal will lock in American military, economic and political domination of the country. Some Iraqi politicians have attacked the deal, especially those loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric whose militiamen fought U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad until a May truce ended seven weeks of fighting.

The agreement is likely to be among the issues discussed this weekend when Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is due to visit Iran — his second trip there in a year.

Ahead of the visit, his party sought to calm worries by insisting that the deal would not allow foreign troops to use Iraq as a ground to invade another country — a clear reference to Iranian fears of a U.S. attack.