Iranian influence soaring in Iraq

[maddezmom]

Shiites, Sunnis say Tehran is winner of U.S. invasion

By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent; Hassan Jarrah in Najaf and Nadeem Majeed contributed to this report
Published March 8, 2007


BAGHDAD -- In the cafeteria of Iraq's parliament, Shiite legislators slip into Persian when they don't want their conversations overheard. In the holy city of Najaf, an Iranian charity helps newlyweds buy furniture. Iranian weapons, freshly manufactured, are turning up in arms caches seized from insurgents in and around Baghdad.

These are among the many ways in which Iran's soaring influence is being felt in Iraq, where Iran's complex entanglement in the affairs of its neighbor lies at the heart of the schism threatening to tear Iraq--and the region--apart.

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"America handed Iraq to Iran on a golden plate," says Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlaq. "Everything Iran fought for in the Iran-Iraq war, America gave to it when it invaded."

To Iraq's Shiites, however, Iran is a natural ally, a neighbor whose friendship should be welcomed after decades of hostility that included the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

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