The unexpected visit of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney to Iraq, during which he took the suspicious measure of freeing some 30 criminal leaders of the Iraqi Baath Party from prison, surprised all political analysts in the world.

Cheney arrived in Baghdad quite suddenly. Even Iraq’s highest-ranking officials were not informed beforehand. Upon arriving in Baghdad, Cheney freed 30 Baath leaders from prison whose hands were stained with the blood of innocent Iraqis.

A number of Iraqi chemists who had helped the Saddam Hussein regime produce chemical weapons were among the Baath Party leaders released.

Without informing the Iraqi president or prime minister, U.S. forces immediately transferred the 30 Baathists to Amman, Jordan on a private plane.

Cheney’s suspicious visit to Iraq as well as his meeting with former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi, who is one of the most mysterious secular figures in Iraq, indicates that the United States is planning a plot to prevent the formation of a national government in Iraq that is elected by the vote of the majority of the Iraqi nation.

Meanwhile, Cheney’s visits to several Arab countries for meetings with their leaders remind one of the tale of Ali Baba and the forty thieves of Baghdad.

In light of the absolute victory of the Shias in the Iraqi parliamentary elections and the probability of the formation of a national and independent government in Iraq, Cheney’s visit to Baghdad can be analyzed from different points of view.

Since the United Iraqi Alliance, a grouping of Shia parties led by Seyyed Abdul Aziz Hakim, has gained the majority of votes, one may assume that the United States is determined to diminish the influence of the UIA to prevent it from forming a national government.

The United States is undoubtedly dissatisfied with the Shia victory in the election and will never allow the UIA, which is quite close to the Iraqi religious authorities in Najaf, to assume power.

One of the upshots of Cheney’s suspicious visit to Baghdad has been an increase in activities by some anti-Shia parties in Iraq that are trying to question the legitimacy of the recent election.

Using the satellite television networks of neighboring Arab countries, these anti-Shia parties announced that the recent election was not acceptable and that they would not recognize the results.

However, the United Nations Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq had earlier confirmed that the election was free and fair.

During his meeting with the leaders of Arab regional countries, Cheney convinced them to recognize a government that would assume power in Iraq after a coup.

Therefore, it is quite certain that the U.S. vice president had taken the preparatory measures in Baghdad to stage a coup with the help of former Baath leaders, some members of Iraq’s minority communities, and Allawi.

The U.S. wants to stage a coup before withdrawing from Iraq in order to establish a secular government with Arab nationalist tendencies led by Allawi that would oppose the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Political analysts have predicted that the U.S. vice president’s visit to Baghdad will have dangerous consequences, with one possibility being Iraq’s division into Sunni Arab, Shia Arab, and Kurdish mini-states.

They have compared Cheney’s visit to Baghdad with the visit of CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt to Tehran in the 1950s, during which preparatory measures for a coup were taken.

In 1953, Kermit Roosevelt arrived in Iran through Iraq in order to organize a coup against the government of Iran. The coup deposed prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and allowed the dictatorial shah to return to the country.

Cheney has gone to Iraq to prepare the way for a caesarean section that will give birth to an infant who greatly resembles former dictator Saddam Hussein.

It is quite clear that the U.S. is not seeking to establish a democratic government in Iraq but has focused all its efforts on forming a government that would later create problems for its eastern neighbor Iran.

But the United States will definitely fail to realize its treacherous objectives because the Iraqi nation will no longer tolerate a government that assumes power through a coup.