On the one hand, the Iranians would like to see threatening US forces expelled from the region. On the other, like Iraq’s supreme ayatollah Ali Sistani, they are hoping the occupation will end peacefully and result in a Shia-dominated state allied to Iran.
The uprising led by Muqtada al Sadr has sharpened the Iranians’ dilemma of whether to support a nonviolent or armed struggle against the Americans. Afrasiabi notes the regime is divided between the conservative clerics led by Ali Khamenei who are sympathetic to the militant Islamists under Sadr, while the liberal wing represented by president Mohammad Khatami has shunned and criticized him.
But the Iranians, he suggests, now appear to be “tilting increasingly in his direction irrespective of their minor misgivings about him” because of the Sadrists’ unexpected success - a development which may underlie recent American charges of Iranian “meddling”.
Asia Times URL: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FE20Ak01.html Also: http://www.supportingfacts.com
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