"One of these things is not like the other..." or is it?

An online article yesterday about the on-going scandal at Oral Roberts University had a picture of a large sculpture of praying hands. Intrigued, I found a more comprehensive photograph. But while I'll doing this little bit of image gathering, I kept wondering...I've seen something like this before...where...oh yeah.
"The Hands of Victory" in downtown Baghdad.

So let's do a little Architecture Appreciation 101 this morning. What do these two monuments have in common? What do they say about the men who commissioned the work? What do they say about their respective "cultures"?

Discuss.