NBC Blogging Baghdad: "Do the Americans want the Iranians to rule Iraq?"

http://baghdadblog.msnbc.com/

Iran and the poetry of protest
Posted by Richard Engel, NBC News Correspondent (07:24 am ET, 12/27/05)

<snip>

But there’s a new one on the scene revealing about the power struggle at the heart of the dispute over the results of elections nearly two weeks ago. At the demonstrations against the election results -- including one here in Baghdad this morning -- you’ll hear the shouted refrain, ‘Iran bara bara, Baghdad tibka horra!’ or ‘Iran Iran stay out, so Baghdad can stay free!’ There is a perception, often more powerful than the truth here, and always more colorful, that Iraq is fighting for its independence and that Tehran forged the elections. "Do the Americans want the Iranians to rule Iraq?" I am often asked by Iraqi friends these days.

As far as I know there is no evidence to support claims, widely believed here, that trucks filled with ballots already marked in favor of Shiite candidates were secretly shipped across the border from Iran in the days leading up to the vote. U.S. and Iraqi officials have dismissed the reports as rumors.


Nonetheless, the belief is out there feeding a volatile and possibly incendiary perception the that struggle between Sunni and Shiite parties is a fight between Iraq and Iran, an emotive issue in a country that lost half a million men fighting a war against Iran throughout much of the 1980s. In many ways, Iraq is behaving like a trauma victim who never adequately coped with these unresolved conflicts -- the war with Iran, the suppression of Kurds and Shiites, the willingness of Iraqis to turn on their neighbors -- which are now bubbling to the surface, and spilling out in shouted rhymed couplets.