Surprisingly, some Iraqis seemed less offended by Mr. Trump’s comments linking terrorism to Islam than American liberals.
Iraqis have endured years of Islam being used to justify mass killing, and some see Mr. Trump as a truth-teller in calling out Islam — or a certain brand of it — as the problem.
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Iraqi Shiites say they believe Mr. Trump will take a harder line on Saudi Arabia, the Sunni power that many see as the incubator of the extreme form of Islam, Wahhabism, that forms a basis of the Islamic State’s ideology.
“The victory of Trump is the beginning of the end of extremist Islam and Wahhabism,” said Mouwafak al-Rubaie, an Iraqi lawmaker and the country’s former national security adviser.
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