Iranians demonstrate against US, UK
Thousands gather in Tehran to protest US and British actions in Iraq.
Iran's clerical regime, a frequent critic of US-led coalition efforts in Iraq, has once again called for Iranians to protest the occupation of their neighbor to the west.
Thousands of protesters – some chanting "death to America, death to Israel" and burning US, British, and Israeli flags – heeded that call Wednesday as they
took to the streets of Tehran "to demonstrate against US and British 'crimes' in Iraq and the profaning of Shiite Muslim holy sites," reports
Agence France-Presse.
About 200 demonstrators also
threw firecrackers, stones, and petrol bombs at the British embassy in Tehran, reports
Reuters. They were reportedly calling for the embassy to be closed. A few windows were broken, but no one in the embassy compound was injured, a diplomat told
Reuters.
Iran's leaders have been
calling for demonstrations in three cities – Tehran, Mashhad, and the holy city of Qom, reports
BBC. For several days Shiite Muslim Iran has denounced actions by US forces against radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, especially in the cities of Najaf and Karbala, home to Shiite Islam holiest shrines, reports
AFP. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sunday that "Muslims cannot tolerate the insolent attacks by US soldiers against the holy places, and these crimes can only be condemned in the eyes of the Islamic world, the Shiites, and the Iranian people."
The Tehran protests come one day after Iraq's foremost Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani – who is well-respected in the majority-Shiite Iran – called for
the withdrawal of both US forces and Sadr's militiamen from Najaf and Karbala. This, reports
Reuters, was "the most clear-cut statement on the issue" from Ayatollah Sistani since Sadr's fighters launched an anti-coalition uprising in April. Dozens of Sadr's fighters have been killed by coalition forces in skirmishes the last few weeks. Some of the fighting has come quite close to some of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines.
Given the influence that Shiite Iran could have on Iraq's Shiite majority, this latest protest will catch the attention of policymakers in the US. "The question of Iran's policy toward post-Saddam Hussein Iraq looms particularly large in the policy circles of Washington and London," writes Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, in
Asia Times Online. He brings up the key question for the US-led coalition: "Is Iran playing a
cooperative or subversive role in Iraq today?" Mr. Afrasiabi then addresses a more specific question as to whether Iran is backing Sadr's rebellion in Iraq, which Iran denies.
Iran's critics in Washington ... contend that [Sadr] is firmly in Iran's camp and his tactical maneuvers against Iran are to shield him from being labeled as Iran's stooge. It may well be that Iran is increasingly enamored of [Sadr's] militant anti-Americanism and his militiamen's ability to withstand the US assault to eradicate them from the scene, tilting increasingly in his direction irrespective of their minor misgivings about him. A [pro-Sadr] drift inside Iran may actually be in the offing, which can be nipped in the bud if – and only if – his "minor uprising" is uprooted in the near future by America's military might.
One of the fiercest US critics of Iran's regime is columnist Michael Ledeen, who argues for a hardline stance against the regime. In an April 29 article in
National Review Online, Mr. Ledeen referred to Moqtada al-Sadr as an "
Iranian puppet" who "took cowardly refuge among the holy shrines of the Shiite faith."
We cannot "solve" Iraq's problems by acting solely within the confines of the nation, because at least three other terror masters of some significance – Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia – are fighting for their survival in Iraq. [The are fighting] against us. [Sadr] is an Iranian creature, and Iran has long since created a huge network inside Iraq, ready to respond to orders from Tehran. ...
The global war on terror requires clear definition, a serious policy, and a strategic plan, which is then applied systematically by all elements of the government. That plan must be regional, at a minimum, and it must include regime change in Syria and Iran, along with a meaningful change of policy in the Saudi kingdom
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof disagrees with the hardline approach, arguing in a piece published Wednesday that the
US should follow a policy of engagement with Iran.
Our goal should be regime change in Tehran. But if Mr. Bush (or Mr. Kerry) pushes Tehran too hard over nukes, we'll fail to get rid of either the nuclear program or this regime. The only alternative is engagement – the precise opposite of the sanctions and isolation that have been US policy under both Presidents Clinton and Bush. Sanctions are even less effective against Iran than against, say, North Korea, because Iran oozes petroleum and is independently wealthy. Isolation by the US has accomplished even less in Iran than it has in Cuba. ... The bottom line is that we could soon have a pro-American Islamic democracy as a beacon for hope in the Middle East – in Tehran, not Baghdad. The risk is that we'll blow it. Mr. Kristof has written several columns recently (from Tehran) about the Iranian regime. In a column published Monday in
NRO, Ledeen
systematically challenges many of the points Kristof made in one of his recent columns. Ledeen begins this way: "Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has been to Iran for a few days, and he's full of deep thoughts about it. But, in keeping with the ideology of his social set, they are his thoughts, not those of the Iranian people."
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'Definitely a cover-up' (
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Death of a Salesman (
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You Must be Likud! (
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