The view of the US's role in the world has deteriorated both internationally and domestically, a BBC poll suggests.
The World Service survey, conducted in 25 nations including the US, found that three in four respondents disapproved of how Washington had dealt with Iraq. The majority of the 26,381 respondents also disapproved of the way five other foreign policy areas had been handled. The poll, released ahead of President Bush's State of the Union speech, was conducted between November and January.
The Bush Administration has been accusing Iran of arming death squads and insurgents. While it's clearly true that both Sadr' Mahdi Army and Badr Corps have Iranian weapons that they are using for death squads, there is no way Iranians would be arming Sunnis.
An Iranian diplomat's report that Arab Iran is destabilizing is much more likely true. And it's also likely that American Special Ops is in part responsible. And guess what they are most interested in? Iranian oil is largely limited to this Arab region.
Los Angeles Times
A ranking Iranian diplomat on Monday said the chaos of Iraq was spilling over into his country, spreading a destabilizing influence to its Arab population.
The assertion by Mohammad Reza Baghban, the Iranian consul in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, runs counter to the Bush administration analysis that violence and instability flow the opposite direction — from Tehran to Baghdad.
"If you take a look at the discoveries of the Iranian police, you will find arms, ammunitions and other illegal equipment smuggled from Iraq to Khuzistan and other Iranian provinces," Baghban said in a rare interview.
Khuzistan is an oil-rich, ethnically Arab province in mostly Persian Iran that has experienced outbreaks of violence over the last few years by suspected separatists.
Allegations that weapons flow from Iran into Iraq are unsubstantiated, despite a strong presence of British and American troops in the border region of southern Iraq, Baghban added.
"The Americans are used to speaking nonsense and none of their allegations are documented," Baghban said. "Can they offer any evidence of what they say?"
[..]The diplomatic stations have granted tens of thousands of visas to Iraqis, even as Americans permit only tiny numbers of Iraqis to travel to the U.S., Baghban said. In Basra alone, 10,000 to 30,000 visas are issued every month, he said.
"They travel to Iran for different purposes like pilgrimage, visiting their relatives or for medical treatment," Baghban said. "There also are Iranians coming to Iraq for pilgrimage, commerce or family visits, and they might pass by Basra. But currently, they are not numerous."
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