http://billmon.org/archives/002117.html

Quote :

"Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister and . . . one of the Americans' closest friends in Iraq, said he was growing increasingly worried about the overweening power of the cleric-dominated Shiite political leadership, which maintains extensive ties to the Iranian Islamic government next door. "They want to inject religion into everything, which is not right," Mr. Pachachi said of the Iraqi Shiite leaders. "I cannot imagine that we might have a theocratic regime in Iraq like the one in Iran. That would be a disaster.""

New York Times
Shiites and Kurds Halt Charter Talks With Sunnis
August 27, 2005

Quote :

""The constitution is not only a disaster for a lot of the people who share the secular democratic perspective, whether Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish. It's also leading to some version of a sharia state . . . not necessarily a theocracy but certainly a state where there is a dominant role for Muslim clerics.""

Former U.S. diplomat David Mack
Washington Post interview
August 24, 2005

Quote :

"It is not just Sunnis who are being targeted in this majority Shia city [of Basra], the professor said, but other Shia as well. All professors -- particularly those interested in politics, like himself -- are in danger. And not just professors, but judges, and doctors and journalists. And politicians who are seen as secular alternatives to the clergy now in power. And those, especially women, who work for foreigners. And Christians."

Newsday
Assassinations, Iranian connection spread fear
August 27, 2005

_____________________

Quote :

"If you're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn't going to happen."

Donald Rumsfield
Interview with Associated Press
April 24, 2003

Quote :

"Tehran, Iran, Aug. 26 - A senior Iranian cleric welcomed on Friday the establishment of an Islamic republic in Iraq and hailed the country's new constitution as one based on "Islamic precepts." Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads the powerful ultra-conservative Guardian Council, told worshippers in Tehran's Friday prayers, "Fortunately, after years of effort and expectations in Iraq, an Islamic state has come to power and the constitution has been established on the basis of Islamic precepts." "We must congratulate the Iraqi people and authorities for this victory," he said. Jannati, who is a top confidant of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that all justice-seeking counties of the world "have no model other than the Islamic revolution in Iran to turn to." "Lebanese Hezbollah and the state of Iraq are not the only supporters of the Islamic revolution," he said. Referring to the West as Global Arrogance, the hard-line cleric said, "No matter how many stones they throw in our path, they cannot prevent the spread of the Islamic revolution in the world." "

8/30/2005 1:40:59 PM

Freedom in 30 minutes or the country's free.

Wait.

What did I just say?

8/30/2005 1:42:48 PM

8/30/2005 7:10:14 PM

^ Damn, thats good. Stick that on the Late Nite with Conan O'Brien with the moving lips and that'd be golden.

8/31/2005 11:11:51 AM

Why did we let them make their own constitution again? We've got a perfectly good copy of ours laying around the office...

8/31/2005 11:41:00 AM