Strange Bedfellows in Iraq

It continues to amaze me that the Bush Administration could think they could control events in Iraq while dealing with an Iraqi government dominated by allies of Iran and handmaidens with the organization that inspired Hezbollah, the Islamic Dawa Party led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Clearly, there was never hope the US would benefit from a Shia revolution in Iraq.
Informed Comment

Ammar al-Hakim, who has been acting head of ISCI in his father's absence, preached a sermon in which he pledged to work against enduring US bases in Iraq. (On December 4, 2006, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim stood next to Bush in the Rose Garden and asked for US troops to remain in Iraq, so this pronouncement seems to be the beginnings of a reversal). Al-Hakim also argued for forging ahead with a Shiite provincial confederation in the south. He argued for a complete return of sovereignty to Iraq, according to AFP.


You have to wonder whether the recent Iran-brokered pact between al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, plus the new ISCI / Sistani consensus on reining in the US military and ultimately pushing it out altogether are a sign of new Iranian and Iraqi Shiite strategizing about the future. It also seems to me that the constant US drumbeat against Iran may have alarmed the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is an Iranian client and which needs Iranian money and support to maintain its political position in Iraq. Iran is therefore working to position ISCI as anti-Occupation over the medium to long run, and as responsible and orderly (thus the pact with Sadr.)


[...](It is ironic that the US government is currently waging a campaign against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, but is turning southern Iraq over to groups like the Badr Corps, which was trained by . . . the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.)