Zitat:Rise of Iraq's Shiites could pose threat to Iran's clerical rulers

By Nicholas Birch | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

TEHRAN, IRAN – Well before the first bomb dropped on Baghdad, Western analysts worried that liberation from Saddam Hussein's Sunni-based tyranny could push Iraq's Shiite majority into the arms of Iranian theocrats.
In the chaos that followed, such concern has seemed justified. Protesters in Shiite districts of Baghdad brandish posters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's theocracy. In Iraq's holy city of Najaf, thousands flock to hear the speeches of Moqtada al-Sadr, a virulently anti-American advocate of clerical rule.

But an extraordinary outburst this week from Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson shows that the renaissance of Iraq's Shiites is a double-edged weapon that potentially is every bit as dangerous for Iranian rulers' grasp on power as it is for Washington.

Speaking to journalists in Najaf Tuesday, Seyyed Hussein Khomeini said that "Iranians insist on freedom, but they are not sure where it will come from. If it comes from inside, they will welcome it, but if it was necessary for it to come from abroad, especially from the United States, people will accept it."

While his name carries great weight for Iranians, Mr. Khomeini has little standing in the Shiite hierarchy. But his comments echo the discontent many Iranians feel about heavy-handed clerical rule.

Faced with US warnings not to meddle in Iraq's affairs, Iran has limited itself to barbed declarations that no one has the right to interfere in another country's affairs. "Tehran has no intention of trying to impose its political model on Iraq," says Amir Mohebbian, a columnist for the ultra-conservative daily Resalat. "All clerics, whether political or apolitical, share our goals and objectives."

But other Iranian observers say there is plenty of evidence that many in Iran would like Iraq to adopt clerical rule. The outspoken support of senior ayatollahs in the Shiite's sacred city of Qom, Iran, they say, has gone a long way toward legitimizing Najaf-based Mr. Sadr.

The rationale behind such behavior is clear, argues Seyyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, expert on Islamic law at Tehran University. "The revival of politically independent seminaries in Najaf will have a spillover effect on Iran. It could create a breathing space for those wishing to conform to the age-old precepts of Shiite tradition - the pious, apolitical links between senior ayatollahs and their followers."

Mesmerized by the push for change of Iran's reformist government, the West has tended to underestimate clerical opposition to the Iranian regime. One London-based clerical opposition group estimates that of approximately 5,000 ayatollahs in Iran, only 80 wholeheartedly support it.

While Ruhollah Khomeini was alive, doubts about his doctrine of clerical rule were tempered by his clerical credentials. The same is not true of his successor Ali Khamenei, only a middle-ranking cleric when he was appointed supreme leader in 1989. "Senior clerics treat his theological pronouncements with disdain," says Nadeem Kazmi, of the London-based Al-Khoei Foundation, a charity with close links to the apolitical Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf.

But what Ayatollah Khamenei lacks in credentials, he has made up for in surveillance, such as increased attempts to bring Qom's independent seminaries under state control. Nobody knows how many dissenting clerics have been executed by special clerical courts, although some sources put the figure at 60 since 1989.

"If Qom remains under the same kind of oppressive atmosphere, everyone will come to Najaf," Seyyed Hussein Khomeini said on Tuesday.

In a recent book on Iran's ruling elite, German Iranian scholar Wilfried Buchta goes further. "A Shia grand ayatollah from outside the Iranian system of power..., could issue fatwas [legal judgments] on religious-social matters that run counter to Khamenei's political line," he writes. "If this should happen, it could bring the whole system to the verge of breakdown."

Following a series of high-level clerical defections in recent years, some Iranian analysts see signs that dissatisfaction in Iran has spread to traditionally pro-regime clerics. But most Iranians doubt the clerics will transform passive opposition into active revolt. "If we're going to depend on them, we have a long wait on our hands," says Davoud Hermidas Bavand, law professor at the Supreme National Defense University in Tehran. The political editor of reformist daily Etemad, Rouzbeh Mirebrahimi, agrees. "Even if Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani stood up in Najaf and criticized the Iranian regime, which he won't, nobody would listen to him."

But this is north Tehran, where students brandish copies of Nietzsche and whisper "God is dead" behind closed doors. While their more secular reform movement seems deadlocked, more traditionally minded Iranians may be willing to listen to clerics in Iraq who advocate separation of mosque and state.

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Zitat:Struck für NATO-Einsatz im Irak

Verteidigungsminister Peter Struck (SPD) befürwortet nicht nur eine stärkere Rolle der NATO in Afghanistan, sondern auch einen Einsatz des Bündnisses im Irak. ....

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Erich der Text wurde von ihm heute editiert, gestern bezog sich sein Posting noch auf deinen Artikel.

Zitat:Spain sends more troops to Iraq
MADRID, Aug. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Seventy members of a second Spanish contingent left for Iraq for peace-keeping activities on Saturday,the Defense Ministry said.

The rest of the contingent will leave before next Thursday, said the ministry.

On board a Boeing 707 of the Spanish air force, the 70 Spaniards left from the Torrejon airbase near Madrid.

The Spanish troops, at Polish command, will be stationed in Al Qasasiyah and Diwaniya as part of the international Plus Ultra Brigade, which includes 1,127 troops from Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.

The Spanish navy also sent war ships Pizarro and Castilla as well as merchant vessel Velazquez to Kuwait. Enditem

Zitat:Germany supports NATO troops in Iraq

German defence minister Peter Struck has said that he supports the idea of a NATO operation in Iraq.

Speaking to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Mr Struck said that so long as there is a UN resolution asking for NATO's help, then there would be no reason to oppose the Alliance in Iraq.

The defence minister also did not exclude that German troops could take part in such an operation - a significant admission given Berlin's strong opposition to the American-led war in Iraq.

Friends again?
This is being seen as the second signal for a diplomatic reconciliation between Berlin and Washington after the US President George W. Bush surprised Germany on Friday with warm words of praise about German troops in Afghanistan.

"Not only is Germany's participation [in Afghanistan] important, it's robust, more robust than we would have anticipated," said President Bush at a press conference. "I look forward to thanking Chancellor Schröder for that".

The German government replied that "it is clear that there is interest to further develop and in the future strengthen the good and friendly relations that have developed over the last decades".

Meeting
Currently there is talk of the two men meeting. Gerhard Schröder is due to travel to New York in September for a UN Assembly gathering. Both sides have hinted that this could lead to a private meeting.

The normally good relations between the two sides became extremely frosty after the German Chancellor used the anti-war in Iraq stance as an election platform for his second term calling the American plans to invade Iraq an "adventure".

The US president and the Chancellor last came face to face at the June G8 summit in France and at the 300-year anniversary of the Russian city of St. Petersburg. At the time, a private meeting between the two was conspicuous by its absence.