Islamic Army calls for 'saving Baghdad from Iranian occupation'

[Barrett808]

DUBAI (AFP) - The head of the Islamic Army in Iraq, one of the main Sunni insurgent groups, called on Muslims to "save Baghdad from Iranian occupation," in an "urgent message" posted on the Internet.

"Iraq is under a double, US-Iranian occupation, the worst being the Iranian Safavid (Shiite Persian) occupation," the IAI's "emir" said in an audio message posted on a website used by Iraqi insurgent groups on Monday.

"The Islamic nation should ensure it does not lose Baghdad as it lost Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and, before that, Al-Andalus (Andalucia in southern Spain). It must carry out its Islamic duty of supporting Sunnis in Iraq by all means ... The decisive battle in Iraq is the battle for Baghdad," the voice said.

"America is staggering in Iraq ... It ignited the fire of sectarian war before realizing that it had fallen into a trap laid by the Iranians, who seized Iraq and its riches without any losses to speak of," the insurgent chief said.

"America is now fully cooperating with the Safavid militias. Iran could not care less for any Shiite in Iraq who is not Persian," he said.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070101/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestiranus

[xultar]

1. Ruh Ro.

[hwmnbn]

2. Damn, just how many groups are there.....

vying for power? It's getting to the point you can't tell the players without a scorecard.

[dave_p]

3. Think of it as a peace feeler

"a double, US-Iranian occupation, the worst being the Iranian"

That's an interesting giveaway following Saddam's appeal not to hate Americans.

A smart country that really considered Iran the greater threat would read that and use it.

But Iran seems to be the only smart country in this one. Uneven doesn't begin to do it justice.

[leesa]

4. This is exactly what Bush wanted. He lit the fuse on Sarurday. Now he will

need his excalation. Will the nitwits in Congress stop this madman?

[struggle4progress]

5. So lemme see if I got this straight. The CIA overthrew Mossadeq to install

the Shah of Iran and then put Saddam Hussein in power to murder Communist Party members in Iraq.

When the Iranians got sick of the Shah and overthrew him, the US took this as a personal affront -- and the Reaganites retaliated by ostensibly supporting Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war, a move requiring the Reaganites to overlook the gassing of Iraqi Kurd while providing nerve gas to Saddam to use against Iran -- but always eager to cause as much death and destruction as possible, the Reaganites also illegally sold weapons to the Iranians to fund their war against Nicaragua, after Congress had cut off war funding. So lots of Iranians and Iraqis died and this made the Reaganites joyous.

During the reign of Bush I, the US encouraged Saddam to invade Kuwait, a nation of slant-drilling oil thieves, run by a snuff-film enthusiast and largely dedicated to using oil profits to buy Asian sex slaves. Once the invasion began, the US set out to save "democracy" and incubator babies in Kuwait by routing the Iraqi army and fire-bombing the retreating Iraqi soldiers into miles of charred corpses along the famous "highway of death." This was followed by a decade of international sanctions which caused a large number of Iraqi deaths, together with periodic bombing of Iraq.

Following the appointment of Bush II, planning began immediately for a general conflagration in the Middle East, under the neocon theory that if we started a world war our grandchildren would sing heroic songs about us. The entire cast of Iran-contra thugs reappeared, as if summoned from hell -- and the "new Pearl Harbor" of 9/11 provided everyone a golden opportunity. The Bushistas promptly enlisted Iranian double-agent Chalabi to provide bullshit excuses for a new war against Iraq, accompanied by war-mongering noises against Syria and Iran as well, while the apparatus of the Salvadoran death-squads was retooled for use in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of dead later, the Administration regularly accuses the Iranians of being behind the chaos. And now the Iraqi "insurgency" alleged blames Iran, too.

It's a stinking mirror puzzle: for half a century, US policy for Iran and Iraq has alternated between supporting brutal dictators and sowing death and destruction. Objectively, a genuine insurgency in Iraq today could have only one sensible aim, which would be to end foreign occupation of the country. Instead, one sees a series of suicide bombings (first directed at targets such as the UN mission) and this bizarre communique complaining of an alleged Iranian occupation with incoherent references to Jerusalem and Andalusia.

This smells like a disinformation campaign.

[BestCenter]

6. Don't forget that

The People's Mujahedin of Iran (MKO), one of the anti-mullah groups in Iran, is still considered a terrorist organization by the State Department, but they have also been given a lot of good buzz by certain Congressional Republicans, and John Ashcroft, as an alternative to Iran's current regime.

Who are they, besides terrorists? The State Dept. describes their ideology as a combination of Nationalism, Islam, and Marxism.

[papau]

10. Any ideology other than US Corporate rule is called "Marxism" by Bush's State Dept n/t

n/t

[BestCenter]

12. No, my point is

That the U.S. used to ally with Islamists against Marxists. Now they're allying with Marxists against Islamists. Irony much?

[papau]

14. LOL :-) I had not thought of the situation in that way - thanks for the smile! n/t

n/t

[dave_p]

7. That other 1492

The Jerusalen and Andalusia references aren't incoherent, they make (almost) perfect sense - and note that they're lost through Muslim weakness. Equating the two (one disputed, the other as lost as lost can be) is an oddity, showing that the appeal's aimed at prospective jihadis.

But don't forget that al-Andalus is still recalled by Muslims as a model of religious coexistence and cross-fertilisation between Islam and Christian Europe. Muslim-ruled Jerusalem wan't so very different: it's taken a succession of others' religious wars to change that.

The message is confused, as befits an utter mess of a conflict. Muslims are asked to defend Islam against fellow Muslims. But when the mighty White House can't choose between bombing Iran and throwing its weight behind an Iranian ally, how's an Islamist Sunni militia to do better?

[papau]

11. Jerusalem , after Christians lost it to the Muslim sword, was lost through Muslim weakness?

So I guess the take away lesson for both the West and for the Muslim world is to have the best sword at all times, and to use it.

Of course this pissing contest will be using nuclear weapons by both sides as Arab States want to waste their treasure on getting best sword - after all - look at how much the US wastes on getting the best sword, and the Arab states have the right to be as stupid as we are.

So let's preach that the only way is through military strength and confrontation and have ourselves a merry little nuclear war - eh?

[Ghost Dog]

9. That reads pretty straight, thanks Struggle4.

(And it's indeed worth remembering that Muslim 'Spain' originally included the entire Iberian Peninsula except for some small areas along the Biscay coast and Navarra (which negotiated). On the Mediterranean side, this included, in Charlemagne's and Pepin's days, the Languedoc and the coast towards Provence at least as far as the Rhône. There was, apparantly, even a short-lived expedition and perhaps settlement up the Rhône valley into what are today's Swiss Alps.)

In the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D., the Gothic-Christian 'reconquest' began (and then largely froze) in the French Midi and today's Catalonia. It was only some 500 years later that Granada in the far south finally fell (Ceuta, on today's Moroccan mainland, for example, had been established by Portugal long before then).

During all those centuries there was indeed much very wonderful cultural and intellectual cross-fertilization going on, as well as the usual 'Medieval' interplay of ever shifting pacts, treaties, the breaking of the same, skirmishes and wars between and among the 'warlords' (counts, barons, emirs, bishops, etc) on all sides of a far from neatly divided boundary. And the 'central', dominant powers on both 'sides' also changed, enormously, over time (eg. Popes, Califas, Orthodox/Catholic/Protestant, Sunni/Shia, ...).

[papau]

15. Sad that there never was an attempt by Mohammad to have a peaceful Muslim Minority in a

Christian ruled country.

I wonder if the cultural and intellectual cross-fertilization that was occurring in the Christian Roman Empire would have again occurred in a Christian Egypt that had a Muslim minority, say. Alas we will never know as Mohammad only gave the rulers of Cairo one choice in that letter now preserved in Turkey - they could surrender to Muslim rule, or die (Mohammad in the letter did not say he would kill anyone - just the if they did not surrender he would attack and if there was an attack, he could not be responsible from the death and the destruction that his God might make him do).

It took 300 years to get even a majority of the populations that were conquered to declare themselves as Muslim - and then it was mainly to avoid the tax that was put on all non-Muslims.

But it is very true that there was cultural and intellectual cross-fertilization in Muslim Spain, albeit under a Muslim sword.

[sofa king]

16. That might explain why the neocons are still proud of themselves.

All sides are, effectively, working for us... because of us... against each other... instead of us.*

The only thing is, the way to really send both Iran and Iraq to hell in a handbasket would have been to withdraw into the oil fields about two years ago, secretly back the Kurds and the Sunnis against the Iranians and the Shiites, and let 'em duke it out for the next two decades while we hold a "neutral zone" between them that steadily siphons off all their oil.

My guess is that a certain Halliburton shareholder saw an opportunity to get rich--rich-er, that is--by staying in the middle of it and decided 3,000 people without other priorities was a small price to pay for it.

* In Bush-speak, an asterisk is defined as a "comma," and it's currently worth a paltry 3,000 (acknowledged) American lives. A small price to pay if the rest of the profit-sharing plan succeeds.

[IndianaGreen]

17. Your post would make a good Cliff's Notes for US-Iraq-Iran History

Nice, concise, summary of all the misdeeds our government has done in that part of the world.

[LynnTheDem]

18. Yep you've got it straight.

And brilliantly put, too!

[Faygo Kid]

8. Out now. We cannot control whatever this is.

Phased withdrawal is an improvement on more troops, but we ought to withdraw now, as this statement indicates. What do we hope to achieve by staying longer? (except oil and bases). Yes, there will be a conflagration to sort it out over there. And if we stay 6 months, or 6 years, that conflagration will still come when we leave. Or maybe it's already here. At any rate, get out now.

[Supersedeas]

13. Nothing to see here -- time for another celebrity awards show

[roamer65]

19. Oh fuck...Jesus H. Christ.

Iraq is probably going to be the trigger for World War III. This won't stay a ME regional conflict. Not when the Chinese hold billions of dollars in Iranian natural gas contracts.