“Since 1968, the Baath have been trashing the only idea that can hold the great social diversity of Iraq together: the idea of Iraq. Their answer to the question "Who am I?" was: You are either one of us, or you are dead. True to their word, they killed anyone who dared to say he was a Kurd or a Shiite or a leftist, or a democrat and a liberal. Contrary to what many Iraqi Shiites tend to think nowadays, the Baath never wanted to build a Sunni confessional state in Iraq. Anti-Shiite sectarianism was introduced on a large scale after the uprising of 1991. The state that the Baath built in Iraq up until the 1991 Gulf War was worse than sectarian. It thrived on the distrust, suspicion and fear that it went about inculcating in everyone. In this sense it was consistently egalitarian. Atomizing society by breeding hate and a thirst for revenge was the regime's highest ambition and principal tool of social control. Every Iraqi -- Kurd or Arab, Muslim or Christian, Shiite or Sunni -- became both complicit in the Baathist enterprise and its victim at the same time.”

"The Shiite Obligation", Wall Street Journal (February 7, 2005)

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Kanan Makiya35

American orientalist 1949

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Ayad Allawi (1945) Iraqi politician

“Hashemi Rafsanjani: Take Palestine, for example. We give support to the mujahideen in Palestine. Are they Shiites? No, they are Sunnis. Moreover, they are zealous Sunnis. Hamas is zealous with regard to Sunni Islam, but because of their Jihad and resistance, we supply them with aid. Likewise, when we supplied support in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo – were they Shiite? It's not like that. Similarly, in Afghanistan, when we gave supported to the Jihad of the mujahideen, we support all the groups – Sunni and Shiite alike – as much as we could. In the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, many of our Sunni brothers found refuge in Iran, just like the Shiite brothers. In Lebanon as well, we gave support when Israel invaded Lebanese territories and occupied them. We gave support to whoever resisted the Israeli occupation in Lebanon. The late sheik Sa'id Sha'ban, who was a close friend of Iran – was he Shiite? He was a Sunni scholar. It's not like that. It is not part of our plan…”

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1934–2017) Iranian politician, Shi'a cleric and Writer

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“We have information that the US ambassador in Iraq held a meeting with several terrorist groups in Iraq, and told them three things. he told them, first of all, to stop aiming their rifles at America. Second, he told them to direct their struggle towards Iran, and third, to direct it towards the Shiites in Iraq.”

Ali Larijani (1958) Iranian philosopher, politician

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George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

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“The Iraqi people will hate any government established in Iraq that will be recognized as appointed by the Americans, just as the Americans are hated. The Americans' coming to Iraq was a mistake. Their staying was a mistake. Their behavior with the population was a mistake… They must know that certainly, the Islamic world and chiefly the Shiite world will not stay silent in face of this.”

Ali Khamenei (1939) Iranian Shiite faqih, Marja' and official independent islamic leader

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“Many Iraqis believe that without Iranian intervention in Iraq, both directly and indirectly through former Premier Nouri al-Maliki, there would’ve been no IS to start with. Iraq had never been torn by sectarian feuds, although it suffered from ethnic conflicts between Arabs and Kurds. It was Khomeinism, a particularly obscurantist form of Shi’ism, that injected a high dose of sectarianism into Iraqi politics.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

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“Iraq hasn't suddenly 'slipped back into' this backward and benighted state. It was bombed there by a mulish military power which didn't know Shiite from Shinola. [translated from German]”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Irak: Von Tuten und Blasen keine Ahnung gehabt" http://jungefreiheit.de/kolumne/2014/irak-von-tuten-und-blasen-keine-ahnung-gehabt/, Junge Freiheit, June 27, 2014. 2010s, 2014

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