The Iranian government naturally wants a Shiite state next door. At the same time, however, it clearly wants the al-Maliki government — and the U.S. mission in Iraq, more generally — to fail. And, goodness, they’ve sheltered al-Sadr for long periods during the current crisis.

The Iranian government likely enjoyed a bit of general chaos early on, but they're looking to consolidate their gains soon. The way to do that is through establishing their main proxies in power (ISCI and Dawa).

Also, Iran very much wants to see a semi-autonomous Shiite super region created in the South. Sadr vehemently opposes this, and has been exploring forming alliances with Sunnis in order to block it.

This made Tehran very, very angry.

The Sadrist current did not run candidates in the January 2005 regional elections. The Sadrist current competed as part of the UIA in the national elections held in December of that year.

Thus, ISCI is overrepresented in Shiite locales due to the Sadrists' boycott. ISCI fears losing ground to the Sadrists this October, so they're doing their best to weaken them now.

"U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in Sadr City, the vast Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad, as an offensive to quell party-backed militias entered its third day. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the area as American troops took the lead in the fighting...

"As President Bush told an Ohio audience that Iraq was returning to 'normalcy,' administration officials in Washington held meetings to assess what appeared to be a rapidly deteriorating security situation in many parts of the country.

"Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that 'we can't quite decipher' what is going on. It's a question, he said, of 'who's got the best conspiracy' theory about why Maliki decided to act now.

"In Basra, three rival Shiite groups have been trying to position themselves, sometimes through force of arms, to dominate recently approved provincial elections.

"The U.S. officials, who were not authorized to speak on the record, said that they believe Iran has provided assistance in the past to all three groups -- the Mahdi Army; the Badr Organization of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Iraq's largest Shiite party; and forces loyal to the Fadhila Party, which holds the Basra governor's seat. But the officials see the current conflict as a purely internal Iraqi dispute.

"Some officials have concluded that Maliki himself is firing 'the first salvo in upcoming elections,' the administration official said.

" 'His dog in that fight is that he is basically allied with the Badr Corps' against forces loyal to Sadr, the official said. 'It's not a pretty picture.' "

It's reassuring to know that more US troops will soon be dying in the defense of that "Iraqi democracy" that Beldar keeps rhapsodizing about in these pages...

Try to be more far sighted Michael, and you will understand more.

My only mistake was thinking that such blatant sarcasm could not be missed. I was wrong, and I apologize profusely*.

(*) Also blatant sarcasm, in case you were wondering.

Think this through a little bit. Let's say that we stay for 20 years, and flourishing democracy springs up. We leave. 2 years later the gangs of Iraq start shooting each other again. Now Iran can try its hand at more influence in the region, but won't get that far because Iraqi's are hardcore nationalists.

Let's say that we stay for 2 years, and the democracy there still sucks. We leave. 1 year later the gangs of Iraq start shooting at each other again. Iran tries its hand at influencing Iraq, but once again runs up against Iraqi nationalism.

Plan20 costs trillions.
Plan2 costs billions.
Let's pretend you hate America, which plan do you want the Americans to choose? If Iran hates American, why not let the Americans stay! The president of Iran has hardcore ties to the electing ruling party through Maliki. And this way, Iran gets to do to us, what we did to the Russians in Afghanistan. Plan20 leaves us weaker, much weaker. If you think a little longer term than 4 year election cycles, because, you know, you are a supreme religious leader for life like Khameni, then you understand that Plan20 hurts the US and benefits Iran more. Under Plan2, if Iran tries to go all out and seize Iraq after we leave, we will finally have the pretext for a war with Iran.

Try to be more far sighted Michael, and you will understand more.

Actually, I'll agree that there's a good chance that the Iraqi Army -- if SCIRI can indeed stomp on its rivals for popular Shiite support using brute military force -- will be able to establish "stability" after the US troops leave. It's just that it will be pro-Iranian stability by a dictatorial government, which will try to keep the US pacified by throwing a few token crumbs to us.

I have no trouble figuring out who to root for as between the Iraqi army and the Madhis. Nor do I have any doubt that Iran's interests, at this time and for this purpose, are tied up with al-Sadr.

And it's a wee bit remiss of you to not point out that the reason the Sadrists said they would sit out the election that elected Maliki is that they believed any government would have little sovereignty and be simply a puppet of outside influences for years. It's difficult to argue they were wrong on that.

Now, of course, the Sadrists are saying they will compete in the next set of elections - which will wipe out SCIRI as the largest Shiite party since all their victories were in the Sadrist parts of the South. Thus the push to demolish Sadr before the elections.

I'm not disagreeing with the main thrust of your post - that all the Shiite factions owe at least something to Iran - just adding some clarification of where the stress points lie.

Regards, C

I would guess in Sadr’s mind he simply wants power. I doubt he is much of a nationalist given his ties to Iran.

It's pretty obvious he just wants power, but he seems timid in seizing it. A cease-fire to calm down your supporters isn't exactly what History's major power-brokers are known for doing.

I'm willing to believe he's more nationalist through, and certainly his followers are, given that his support comes mostly because of his father's work in Iraq.

As soon as we get out of the region, Iran’s going to be forced to pick sides, which will immediately diminish their influence on the country.

Which, of course, is why we must stay in Iraq: so that Iran doesn't win.