Al Qaeda refers to Baghdad's Green Zone as "the American-Persian-Zionist Zone."

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0703080164mar08,1,6508711.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Iranian influence soaring in Iraq

Shiites, Sunnis say Tehran is winner of U.S. invasion

By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent; Hassan Jarrah in Najaf and Nadeem Majeed contributed to this report

Published March 8, 2007

BAGHDAD -- In the cafeteria of Iraq's parliament, Shiite legislators slip into Persian when they don't want their conversations overheard. In the holy city of Najaf, an Iranian charity helps newlyweds buy furniture. Iranian weapons, freshly manufactured, are turning up in arms caches seized from insurgents in and around Baghdad. snip

"America handed Iraq to Iran on a golden plate," says Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlaq. "Everything Iran fought for in the Iran-Iraq war, America gave to it when it invaded." snip

"Iran has emerged as the biggest winner of the United States' war," writes Shiite scholar Vali Nasr in the current issue of the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine, which ranks Iran No. 1 among the top 10 beneficiaries of the war. "For Iran, the war in Iraq turned out to be a strategic windfall."

Indeed, Iran barely had to lift a finger to win this round in its centuries-old rivalry with Iraq. By removing the two staunchly Sunni regimes ruling Iran's neighbors--the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Baathists in Iraq--the U.S. eliminated the two biggest security threats to Iran's borders within a period of less than two years.

The advent of democracy in Iraq further leveraged Iran's influence, by installing in Baghdad a Shiite-dominated government, many of whose leaders had been sheltered in Iran during the years they stood in opposition to Saddam Hussein's regime, disposing them toward friendship with Iran.

[Ian David]

1. "The American-Persian-Zionist Zone... or NAMBLA." n/t