From AFX via Forbes:
TEHRAN - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani wrapped up a landmark visit to neighbouring Iran today, saying he had won promises of support for his bid to end the insurgency ravaging his country.'Iran is interested in our security just as it is interested in its own security. We should use all means to establish security in Iraq,' Talabani said as he was seen off by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Talabani is the first Iraqi head of state to visit Iran since the late 1960s. He said he had received pledges of support in his closed-door talks with Ahmadinejad and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei told Talabani that foreign troops were the cause of violence and that Iraqi authorities should demand a timetable for a pull-out.
'The Islamic Republic of Iran holds the American government responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people and all the crimes and assassinations now being committed in Iraq,' Khamenei was quoted as saying by official media.
'The presence of foreign troops is damaging for the Iraqis, and the Iraqi government could ask for their departure by proposing a timetable,' Khamenei asserted, adding that 'the US and Britain will eventually have to leave Iraq with a bitter experience.'...
"Khamenei told Talabani that foreign troops were the cause of violence and that Iraqi authorities should demand a timetable for a pull-out."
Sounds like Dick Durbin, wait no, John Murtha, wait no, Teddy the Swimmer, er no, Pelosi, Schumer, Joe Wilson,, um any Democrat in the Senate.
Khamenei smells American defeatism all the way from what he sees broadcast on CNN. He knows very well that American resolve on Iraq spells tough times for him in the future. Do the Senate Democrats/Bush bashers/MSM see the bigger picture here with Iran? Didn't think so.
The Islamic world can't allow the American Crusaders the "victory" of creating security in a Muslim country. This would be a humiliating blow to Islam. In the Western sense, the behavior of Iran that harbors insurgents and allows them to cross over the border into Iraq is hypocrisy. However, Islam does not consider such behavior hypocritical as everything done to promote the goals of Islam and to thwart non-Muslims is permissible.
Talk about the law of unintended consequences. Among other things, we have been used by crafty Muslims to rid themselves of an offensive secular dictator, and because we can't provide security from the insurgents that another Muslim country sends surreptitiously, we will won't receive credit for our efforts, and will be condemned in the world press, lose the "hearts and minds" of the Muslim world as invaders, and will be responsible for the consolidation of two groups of Shi'ia, creating a larger Islamic-style territory ruled by Sha'ria.
It becomes more obvious that Western leaders were completely clueless about the tenents of Islam and the history of the Muslim world. The stupidity of these people is undescribable.
Iran and the United States, sharing the same goal, working together to build a new Shi'a-dominated Iraq. Money, and training of "Iraqi"(i.e. Shi'a) forces, by the Americans. Money, and training of "Iraqi" (i.e. Shi'a) forces, by the Iranians. The Americans may be concentrating on the so-called "Iraqi" army (which does have a few Sunni and Kurds) and the Iranians on the Badr militia, but it is more or less the same thing.
Isn't this the best way to create that Dialogue of Civilizations we hear so much about? The Americans government, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Iraq, working side-by-side, practically, in the middle-eastern male manner, hand-in-hand.
Some great observations here by epg and Hugh. I find it ironic that Bush/Rice seem to think that they can sacrifice the only real ally in the region - Israel - in order to make friends with Islamic regimes. It seems they think that Iraqi gratitude will provide the U.S. with an Arab-Islamic friend in the region, which they would prefer to oil-less, universally hated Israel. The irony is that by their very nature, none of the Arab Islamic states will ever be a reliable ally for the U.S.
Talabani - don't you realize Iran is one of the sources of the insurgency in Iraq? Bin Laden's son is living in Iran you useful idiot. Zawaheri and maybe Bin Laden are there also.
Do not underestimate the ability of the Shiia and Sunni to cooperate when it comes to killing the infidel and the apostate. Iran will have you killed as soon as you are no longer useful to them.
GFB, that's why Iraqi democracy is a hopeless endeavor. All that will result from this enterprise is idiots elected by idiots -- the blind leading the blind. Exactly where are the enlightened Iraqi politicos on the landscape? Name one, just one. You're trying to sew seeds on barren land -- not gonna work.
It's better to move on to remove the Iranian regime. Iraq is a lost cause. There was never enough potential in that dysfunctional family to begin with. Let them go their separate ways -- Kurdistan, Shia-stan, Tikriti-stan.
Any regional instability or expansionst threat from Shia-stan or Greater Shia-stan can be headed off by eliminating the Tehran regime (sooner rather than later!)
Regime-change in Iran should be a higher priority than salvaging Iraq. The Iraqis will never be a robust self-sustaining democracy, no matter how hard you try to force-feed them. You can lead their horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Hollering at CNN to show pictures of the horse drinking still isn't going to make it drink.
If you can't trust Iran, who can you trust?
A Pan-Arab attack on Israel shortly after the US exit. Perhaps with nukes. Ensuing WW3.
Such comments are to be expected from people whose extent of knowledge is limited to FREE REPUBLIC, and other Right Wing blogs and phorae.
Talabani, and his PUK, have a long history of support and relationships with the Mullahcracy of Iran, he's on first name basis with them, and his PUK pesh murga's were allies with Iran in the Iraq Iran war.
An outfit that has fallen off the radar scope is the Islamist Marxist Mujahideen e-Khalq, which ran it's own terrorist campaign against the Mullahs of Iran (because the Mullahs were as venal, unjust and corrupt as the Shah). Driven out of Iran finally, they were given refuge by Saddam.. wonder where they are, if they have been betrayed by the coalition, as they would be a big source of problem for the Iranians and Shi'a elite aka SCIRI, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, headed by Ayatollah al Sistani, al Hakim and Prime Minister Ja'afari, all of whom have ties to Iran, and all of whom were backed by the neo cons and Bush Administration.
Al Hakims' brother, another powerful Ayatollah was assassinated in 2003, Wolfowitz eulogized him at Arlington as "The Abraham Lincoln of his country"
"Al Hakims' brother, another powerful Ayatollah was assassinated in 2003, Wolfowitz eulogized him at Arlington as "The Abraham Lincoln of his country"
-- from a posting above
I can find no support for the above save for similar assertions by the same poster in previous postings at Jihadwatch. If Wolfowitz did describe this SCIRI party founder as "the Abraham Lincoln of his country," it would be helpful to have his exact words. If the text of that oration is available I would like to receive it. Eulogistic excess can sometimes be excused -- but not always.