Iran opposes US intervention in Iraq

Iran strongly opposes US 

interference in Iraq: Leader

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has expressed Iran’s strong opposition to US interference in Iraq’s internal affairs

Press TV,

23 June, 2014

Addressing a meeting with Iran’s Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani and judicial officials in Tehran on Sunday, the Leader added that arrogant Western powers led by the US are behind the ongoing sedition in Iraq.

“We are strongly against the interference of the US and others in Iraq’s internal affairs and do not approve of it, because we believe that the Iraqi government, nation and religious authority are capable of ending this sedition and will end it, God willing,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.The Leader emphasized that hegemonic Western powers, particularly the US, seek to capitalize on the ignorance and prejudice of some "mercenary elements" in Iraq.

“The main objective behind recent events in Iraq is to deprive the country’s people from achievements which they made despite the US presence and intervention; the most important of which is the rule of a democratic system,” Ayatollah Khamenei pointed out.

The Leader stated that the US has been irked by the high voter turnout in Iraq’s parliamentary elections because it wants Iraq to be dominated and a puppet state.

Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated that the conflict in Iraq is not between Shia and Sunni Muslims; rather the arrogant system is using Takfiri militants and the remnants of the ousted regime of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to destabilize Iraq and threaten the country’s territorial integrity.

The main conflict in Iraq involves those who favor to see Iraq join the US camp and those who favor the country’s independence, the Leader explained.

Iran rejects U.S. action in Iraq 

Iran's supreme leader accused the United States on Sunday of trying to retake control of Iraq by exploiting sectarian rivalries, as Sunni insurgents drove towards Baghdad from new strongholds along the Syrian border.

 

Reuters,

23 June, 2014

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's condemnation of U.S. action came three days after President Barack Obama offered to send 300 military advisers to help the Iraqi government. Khamenei may want to block any U.S. choice of a new prime minister after grumbling in Washington about Shi'ite premier Nuri al-Maliki.

The supreme leader did not mention the Iranian president's recent suggestion of cooperation with Shi'ite Tehran's old U.S. adversary in defense of their mutual ally in Baghdad.

On Sunday, militants overran a second frontier post on the Syrian border, extending two weeks of swift territorial gains as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) pursues the goal of its own power base, a "caliphate" straddling both countries that has raised alarm across the Middle East and in the West.

"We are strongly opposed to U.S. and other intervention in Iraq," IRNA news agency quoted Khamenei as saying. "We don’t approve of it as we believe the Iraqi government, nation and religious authorities are capable of ending the sedition."

Some Iraqi analysts interpreted his remarks as a warning to the United States not to try to pick its own replacement for Maliki, whom many in the West and Iraq hold responsible for the crisis. In eight years in power, he has alienated many in the Sunni minority that dominated the country under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Khamenei has not made clear how far Iran itself will back Maliki to hold on to his job once parliament reconvenes following an election in which Maliki's bloc won the most seats.

Speaking in Cairo, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States wanted Iraqis to find a leadership that would represent all the country's communities - though he echoed Obama in saying it would not pick or choose those leaders.

The U.S. and Iranian governments had seemed open to collaboration against ISIL, which is also fighting the Iranian-backed president of Syria, whom Washington wants to see removed.

Accusing Washington of using Sunni Islamists and loyalists of Saddam's Baath party, he added: "The U.S. is seeking an Iraq under its hegemony and ruled by its stooges." During Iran's long war with Saddam in the 1980s, Iraq enjoyed quiet U.S. support.

Tehran and Washington have been shocked by the lightning offensive, spearheaded by ISIL but also involving Sunni tribes and Saddam loyalists. It has seen swaths of northern and western Iraq fall, including the major city of Mosul on June 10.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized oil-rich Sunni Gulf states that he said were funding "terrorists" - a reference to the likes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar which have backed Sunni rebels against Syria's Iranian-backed leader, Bashar al-Assad.....[  ]

"We emphatically tell those Islamic states and all others funding terrorists with their petrodollars that these terrorist savages you have set on other people’s lives will come to haunt you,” IRNA quoted Rouhani as saying on Sunday.