No surprise here. From the Washington Times, and Ali Dashti:
Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body of powerful Muslim clerics that chooses the country’s supreme leader, opened its 12th session Sunday calling for an Islamic republic in Iraq.
In his opening speech, the assembly’s speaker, Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, urged Iraqi leaders to unite to expel foreign troops in Iraq and establish a government based on the principles of Islam similar to the one in Iran, according to reports in the Tehran Times yesterday.
The Iraqi leadership must “expel the occupiers and establish an Islamic government,” the ayatollah said.
He also said that the United States and Britain were responsible for “the ruthless massacre of the Iraqi people and must be punished by a competent court.”