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Article: IRAQ - Iran's Regional Gains.
- Article from:
- APS Diplomat Strategic Balance in the Middle East
- Article date:
- February 26, 2007
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In recent weeks, President Bush and US military officials have increasingly accused Iran of meddling in Iraq's affairs. But from Iran's perspective, given its long-standing interests in Iraq, it is the US which is meddling in its backyard.
From the start of the US occupation of Iraq, at least some in the Bush administration saw an opportunity to curtail the influence of Iran's radical Shi'ite leaders by producing an alternative, a moderate centre of Shi'ite Islam which The New York Times on Feb. 18 said "would effectively neuter Tehran in ideological, political and strategic terms".
This was clear to the leaders of Iran's Shi'ite theocracy, whose ...