http://imgred.com/tn/ Iran - and Others - Should Raise Monuments to George W. BushBy William Waack
Translated By Brandi Miller
April 9, 2007
Brazil - O Globo
On the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's statue this Monday in Baghdad (Mar. 9), the country that should erect a monument is Iran: to George W. Bush. Neither Americans nor Iraqis commemorated the event. Fewer and fewer Americans support the war and more and more Iraqis are protesting against the Americans. In the region, Iran is more powerful, more confident and more predisposed to expressing its growing sense of self-confidence.
Perhaps it's only a coincidence that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, chose the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam to announce that his country had achieved industrial-level production of enriched uranium. Knowing the eagerness with which Ahmadinejad seeks attention, one must doubt that it's a coincidence. One must also doubt that this so-called industrial uranium enrichment capacity has been achieved, but that's another story.
In Iraq, the fall of Saddam was remembered with the biggest organized anti-American demonstrations since the invasion four years ago WATCH . Thousands of people took to the streets of Najaf - the main religious center, surrounding the tomb of Imam Ali and the cemetery nearby - to protest against the United States. The demonstrations were called for and directed by the immense political and military organization commanded by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr is a nightmare for the Americans. The name of his father, a respected Ayatollah assassinated by order of Saddam, baptized the main Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad Sadr City, a gigantic slum area of two million inhabitants. Overseeing Sadr City is the Mahdi Army , a militia that has already confronted American troops on at least two occasions - one of them in Najaf in 2004, in a confrontation that only ended with the intervention of Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, a man that was born in Iran.
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What we can reasonably affirm, on this fourth anniversary of Saddam’s fall, is that the Americans are as far from "stabilizing" the country as they are from determining any sort of political future for Iraq. The confrontations in the South of Baghdad that the Mahdi Army has taken part in lately involves Kurdish troops brought from the North to help the Americans "pacify" the capital – Bush's final gambit to create a window to permit a troop withdrawal before the next election.
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