Iraq Press Roundup

Shabab Al Iraq Newspaper in an editorial Tuesday by Widad Fakhir criticized Iraqi politicians for creating sectarian divides.

He wrote: "When a crack forms in a ship, it is everyone's duty, including the passengers, to fix the crack and prevent the water from coming into the ship so people won't drown.

"But what we see in Iraq is contrary to that. … Many politicians try to divide the Iraqi people and that would widen the crack leading to the drowning of everyone on the ship, which is in the case is Iraq."

It said those who "widen the crack" are former Baathists who are out of or inside the government, including security forces and their militias. The paper said the other source of support for terrorism is "regional countries that want to divide Iraq and in this mission is the Syrian-Iranian core, the Saudi-Gulf core and the Turkish-American core."

"It is clear that the occupying country, the U.S., has the role of motivating the arrogant Turkish assault on Iraqi Kurdistan," the editorial said.

"This motivation can be categorized as another pressure, beside the terrorist pressure on Iraq, to force the Iraqi government to respond positively to the U.S. conditions that would only keep Iraq under the U.S. domination.”

For the paper, what encouraged the United States and Turkey to carry out the assault was the “so-called unacceptable and illegal presence of the Kurdistan Workers Party," which, the paper said, wants to defend its rights from inside their home.

"Why wouldn't that be their right?" the paper asked, "when we have the Iranian Mujahedin e Khalq," which "fights from Iraq, a country that is not theirs? In the meantime, they give the Iraqi Shiites a bad reputation."

The editorial complained that people in the north, which talks of a federation even though that goes against the constitution, and politicians in the "central government" are fighting among themselves, which makes the government lose its gravity.

"In spite of the fact we believe the Kurds have a right to self-determination, convincing them to stay part of the united federal Iraq means they have to accept and understand that constitution applies to them the same as all Iraqis," the editorial said.

The editorial said it hoped all Iraqis would "regain their wisdom and understanding to handle the Turkish crises."

"Iraq and Iraqis are not in a situation to be involved in more wars," it said.

The Saudi Arabia-based Iraqi Al Basaer newspaper ran an editorial Tuesday titled "Iran replaces the U.S.; Samara replaces Baghdad."

The editorial said after the failures the U.S. occupation has faced due to the Iraqi resistance, it appears "the U.S. administration has started to apply its Plan B in the region.”

The core of Plan B is Iran, the paper said.

"It is most likely that the U.S. would commission a big role for the Iranian administration to do what it couldn't do over the last four years," the editorial said.

It added: "The U.S. and Iran are two faces of the same coin. Iran is needed in the region to preserve U.S. and Israeli interests in the area," the radical Sunni paper said.

"If the U.S. bombed Iran," the paper said, "it will be followed by an Arab-Kurdish armed struggle over Kirkuk, and the goal won't be Kirkuk itself, but will be part of Plan B.”

It added that part of the plan was to divide Iraq so it becomes weaker. It said the plan calls for a Kurdish state, Kirkuk won’t be under Kurdish control and the rest of the country will be divided between Shiites and the Kurds, with the "capital in Samara instead of Baghdad."

"With these serious plans the Arab countries must wake up before it's too late to confront Plan B by uniting and provide … (aid) to the Iraqi resistance because it is the only side that has proven success to fight the U.S. and Iranian occupation," the paper said.