TEHRAN, 4 June 2004 — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday poured scorn on US claims of promoting democracy in the Middle East, saying Iraq was a prime example of Washington’s failed policies in the region.
“After 15 months, the Americans (still) do not let Iraqis say what they want or who they want,” to govern the country, he said in a speech to mark the 15th anniversary of the death of Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Khomeini.
Iran’s fiercely anti-US Shiite rulers have been highly critical of US actions in neighboring Iraq, while Washington has warned Tehran not to interfere in Iraq which has a 60 percent Shiite majority.
“US President (George W. Bush) shamelessly claims he has a mission to promote democracy in the world... One can see its example in Iraqi prisons such as Abu Ghraib,” said Khamenei, Iran’s most powerful figure.
Bush has repeatedly held out the prospect of a democratic Iraq as a catalyst for political and economic reform across the region. “Now freedom is stirring in the Middle East and no one should be against it,” he said in a keynote speech to Air Force Academy graduates on Wednesday.
But Khamenei questioned whether democracy could be brought to a country by means of “atomic bombs, coups and military might,” he said in comments broadcast live on state television.
The US-led coalition had promised to hand over power to the Iraqi interim government by the end of June, with elections for a transitional government in 2005. “The Americans, whether they want it or not, whether they accept it or not, are defeated in Iraq,” Khamenei said.
Khamenei dismissed Iraq’s new caretaker administration as a “lackey” government at the beck and call of the United States. However, he did not explicitly rule out a dialogue with the new Iraqi team, which a top security official and the Foreign Ministry have still praised as a “step toward a return to sovereignty”.
“Humiliating Iraqi men, raping Iraqi women, breaking down the doors of Iraqi homes and installing a lackey government, that’s what happens when you remove the clergy from politics,” Khamenei said.
His comments sparked chants of “Death to the United States”, “Death to England,” from the tens of thousands gathered for the anniversary at Khomenei’s mausoleum on the southern outskirts of the capital.
“Iraq belongs to Iraqis and it is Iraqis who must decide their destiny,” Khamenei said, arguing that those in power in Washington “have no right to decide who should run Iraqi affairs.”
