Khatami on Iraq

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in the United States!

In an interview to Time magazine, Hindustan Timeshe said removal of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power has been proved to be of benefit to Iran.

I also predicted that getting into Iraq would be very easy (for America), but getting out of it would be extremely difficult. And today, Saddam is gone but Iraq has become the centrestage of extremism and radicalism.

But he rejected the suggestion that Iraq is now witnessing a civil war and also strongly opposed the idea of partitioning Iraq in three parts -- Shia, Sunni and Kurd.

Definitely a bad idea. Iraq should remain unified. The solution is a democratic state. Numerically, the country is majority Shiite, but the government is not yet sectarian.

The President is a Kurd. The head of the government is a Shiite. The Sunnis have great, effective participation. So the breakup of Iraq is very dangerous. A democratic state can prevent this from taking place.

We could have resolved Iraq issue without invasion and occupation without the cost in terms of human life, American lives, Iraqi lives and money... If US had not had such a sense of conceit and pride or maybe arrogance. . . .

The best way is to strengthen and to support the government, its security services, its police forces, and the best way to do that is also to get help from neighbouring countries.

The US should know that it could get the help of Arab and Islamic countries to secure its interests, rather than without them.