A U.S. plot to boost Sunni power.

Iran

Editorial

Jomhuri-ye Eslami

The Americans were behind the “heinous” destruction of a holy Shiite shrine in Iraq, said Tehran’s Jomhuri-ye Eslami in an editorial. They want everyone to believe that the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, a desecration that has brought Iraq to the brink of civil war, was the work of a mere “handful of fanatical bigots.” But we have to ask: Who would benefit from sectarian violence in Iraq? The people who are most dissatisfied with the ascension of the Shiites in Iraq are the occupiers and the “factions that operate under their protection,” most notably the Sunni political parties. The U.S. has said openly that it will not respect the outcome of the Iraqi free election, which produced a clear Shiite majority. The U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, himself a Sunni, issued a “blatant threat” last week that his country would not tolerate a sectarian government. It’s obvious that the terrorism in Samarra fits in with “the occupiers’ policy of preventing the establishment of Shiite sovereignty in Iraq.” The Americans are trying to frighten Iraqis into accepting a “national unity” government that gives key ministries to Sunni parties that did not earn such posts at the ballot box. Iraqis’ key task now is to foil the aims of the “imperialist occupiers and their Zionist masterminds”—by refusing to fall into the trap of civil war.

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