Iran leaders slam US presence in Middle East

SpaceWar.com reports: “Iran’s supreme leader and president both slammed the United States’ presence in the Middle East, as Tehran hosted the president of neighbouring Iraq for wide-ranging talks on Saturday.

Decades-old arch enemies the United States and Iran have vied for influence in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Both helped Iraq to defeat the Islamic State group, and the United States still has 2,500 non-combat troops in the country to provide it with advice and training.

Some 900 US troops remain in Syria, most in the Kurdish-administered northeast, as part of a US-led coalition battling remnants of IS.

And the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, across the Gulf from Iran.

‘Americans are not friends with anyone and are not even loyal to their European friends,’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said at his meeting with Iraq’s President Abdul Latif Rashid, the supreme leader’s website said.

‘Even the presence of one American in Iraq is too much.’…”

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