typical bush administration response...
"stop the crackdown...? i got yer crackdown right he-e-e-e-ere, ya wussies...!"Iran called off further Iraq security talks with Washington until U.S. forces stop their crackdown on Shiite militias, but the military brought more air power into the fight Monday and escalated its accusations of Iranian backing for extremists.
The latest flare-up has put Iraq's government in a bind as it seeks to stamp out armed Shiite gangs but worries about angering Shiite heavyweight Iran, which has close ties to the core of Iraq's political leadership.
so, what does an honest-to-god expert, with all the right bona-fides think about this unholy mess...?
nir rosen in a post at steve clemons' washington note, entitled "selling the war"...[T]here is nothing legitimate in the government of Iraq, it provides none of the services we would associate with a government, not even the pretense of a monopoly on violence, it was established under an illegitimate foreign military occupation and it is entirely unrepresentative of the majority of Sunnis and Shiites who are opposed to the American occupation and despise the Iraqi government.
Moreover the dominant parties in the government and in those units of the security forces that battled their political rivals in Basra and elsewhere are the ones closest to Iran. The leadership of the Iraqi government regularly consults Iranian officials and is closer to Iran than any other element in Iraq today. Moreover, the Americans have always blamed their failures in Iraq on outsiders, Baathists, al Qaeda, Iranians, because they refuse to admit that the Iraqi people don't want them. So Iran is a convenient scapegoat to explain the strength of the Sadrists, a strength actually resulting from the fact that they are a genuinely popular mass movement. Blaming Iran also lets the Americans maintain the illusion that the Mahdi Army's ceasefire is still in effect.
[...]
The truth is, most allegations about Iran's role in Iraq and the region are unfounded or dishonest. Iran was responsible for ending the recent fighting in Basra and calming the situation after Iraqi parliamentarians who backed Prime Minister Maliki approached it. The Iranians, never close to Muqtada or his family, were so annoyed with Muqtada and his presence that they reportedly ordered him out of Iran where he had been living in virtual house arrest anyway since arriving six months earlier. Iranian officials and the state media clearly supported Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government against what they described as "illegal armed groups" in the recent conflict in Basra, which is not surprising given that their main proxy in Iraq, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council dominates the Iraqi state and is Maliki's main backer.
The Supreme Council is of course also the main proxy for the US in Iraq and somehow in the Senate testimony it was forgotten that its large Badr militia was established in Iran and is actually the only Iraqi opposition group to have fought on the Iranian side against Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Moreover, the Badr militia was a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that is so demonized today, and Badr dominates the ministry of interior, if not most of Iraq at the higher echelons. But none of this openly available information made its way to the Post's editorial writers or the dominant discourse in the US.
then we have scott ritter, another honest-to-god expert, who sees the writing on the wall...Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who was among the original experts to question Bush Administration claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, now says he believes an attack on Iran is a "virtual guarantee."
"We take a look at the military buildup, we take a look at the rhetoric, we take a look at the diplomatic posturing, and I would say that it’s a virtual guarantee that there will be a limited aerial strike against Iran in the not-so-near future—or not-so-distant future, that focuses on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command," Ritter said last week in a little-noted interview with Amy Goodman's Democracy Now. "And if this situation spins further out of control, you would see these aerial strikes expanding to include Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and some significant command and control targets."
as horrified observers, all we can do in a situation like this is to try and connect the dots, and when the picture starts to emerge, start screaming bloody murder (not that screaming bloody murder has ever even slowed the white house criminals down)...Labels: Baathists, Badr Corps, cabal, Iran, Iraq, Nir Rosen, Nouri al-Maliki, Sadrists, Scott Ritter, Shiite, Steve Clemons, Sunni, White House
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