Word: hussein
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...meddling. It was not just the CIA-assisted coup in 1953 against the popular democratic Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, which Obama mentioned in his Cairo speech. It was also the Western support for the Shah and, worst of all in the minds of Iranians, the U.S. support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, including the provision of chemicals that Saddam used to concoct poison gas. This remains an open wound in Iran. (See "In Tehran, Terror in Plain Clothes...
...with a hyperbolic title. This one is situated squarely on the left side of the aisle, so conservative readers need not apply--if, as Charles Pierce implies, conservative reader isn't a contradiction in terms. The terrain is well trod: from intelligent design to the dubious link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, Pierce argues, prevailing political wisdom in the U.S. has been based not on fact but on who could shout loudest. The book elevates itself with original reporting, some witty asides (a Mitch Albom best seller is slammed as "what Dante would have written had he grown up next...
...organizations to topple the Shah and rid Iran of what it described as Western imperialism. In the wake of the 1979 revolution, though, the group found itself under attack by its former allies in the new Islamic regime and took up arms. Its military wing was based in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. From there, MEK carried out assassination and terrorist strikes inside Iran and fought alongside Saddam's army in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. (See pictures of Saddam Hussein...
...Fourteen centuries later, Hussein's tomb in Karbala is one of the two holiest Shi'ite shrines - millions of Iranians make pilgrimages there every year. Just as Christians re-enact Jesus' procession bearing the cross past the 14 stops to Calvary before his crucifixion, so, too, do Shi'ites every year re-enact Hussein's martyrdom in an Islamic passion play during the holy period of Ashura...
...Because of Hussein, revolt against tyranny became part of Shi'ite tradition. Indeed, protest and martyrdom are widely considered duties to God. And nowhere is the practice more honored than in Iran, the world's largest Shi'ite country...