President Mohammad Khatami said Wednesday that Iran would be ready to help the United States resolve the crisis in Iraq. "We are ready to help the Americans in Iraq so that the Iraqi people can extricate themselves from miserable situation they currently find themselves in," Khatami told reporters in Teheran. The president said Iran's main goal had always been to help the Iraqis to achieve peace, stability and progress in the their country. "We had never been against the fall of (former Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein, but the current situation has not lessened the problems in Iraq but rather increased them," Khatami said. He said the U.S. invasion had spawned terrorism and brought no appreciable democratic benefits to Iraq. "The solution is still a withdrawal of the allied forces from Iraq, holding free elections and leaving the fate of the country to the Iraqis themselves," Khatami said.
