Strategic Confusion

When Michael O'Hanlon sneezes, the resulting mucous becomes two op-eds in prominent newspapers. Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Robert Kagan are all regular columnists. But when CAP's Brian Katulis and Matt Duss want to bring some facts into the discussion it winds up in The Baltimore Sun. Fortuately, thanks to the magic of the internet, a Sun article can be read anywhere. Let's hope it is:

Speaking before Congress, General Petraeus said, "Iran has fueled the violence in a particularly damaging way through its lethal support to the special groups," referring to Shiite splinter groups allegedly receiving support from Iran. According to the general, the recent clashes between Shiite groups stretching from Basra in the south all the way to Baghdad "highlighted the destructive role Iran has played in funding, training, arming, and directing the so-called special groups."

Conservatives such as Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, have latched on to this incomplete description of the ongoing intra-Shiite struggles in Iraq as the latest reason why our over- stretched military forces must remain in Iraq. [...]

These depictions ignore an inconvenient truth: The leaders in Iraq's current government are closely aligned with Tehran and represent some of Iran's closest allies in Iraq. This is perhaps best illustrated by the warm welcome Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received in his visit to Iraq last month, which punctures the myth that the current battle is between a unified Iraqi government and fringe groups receiving support from Iran.

But we need resolve or else people get bolder!

Comments

they must be laughing their asses off in Tehran.

Posted by cleek | April 11, 2008 10:05 AM

Now Matt, here is a good place for you to insert a photo. That picture of Maliki holding hands with Mahmoud would be perfect.

Posted by freddiemac | April 11, 2008 10:12 AM

"it winds up in The Baltimore Sun"

Whats wrong with the Sun?

Posted by Dave | April 11, 2008 10:20 AM

Does anyone have any good explanations for why Iran might be backing both the Iraq government and extra- (and anti-) governmental forces in Iraq? What are supposed to make of this?

Posted by Ryan | April 11, 2008 10:40 AM

Ryan --- re: Iran backing all Shi'ite groups --- someone has to win (eventually) and it always pays to have an ear of someone reasonably important on the eventual winner's side. Also it minimizes post-facto animosity against Iran... think of the same explanation as to why lobbyists for a major corporation will give 80% of their donations to one party, but 20% to the other party, and concentrate that money on a few key players. Even if your desired candidates lose, you still get some influence and a (small) seat at the table.

Posted by fester | April 11, 2008 10:59 AM

fester, that's one possible explanation. The other is that Iran itself has factions, which play games against each other. The moderates, who have no defining center at the moment, are by the force of things behind Rafsanjani, for instance, who seems to favor Jafari, who has been trying to bring down Maliki. Jafari has been making overtures to Sadr. Ahmadinejad favors SCIRI, and SCIRI is making its move to become Maliki's base - which isn't so good for Maliki. It is rather like depending on a piranha to be your best friend.

Posted by roger | April 11, 2008 12:07 PM

Whats wrong with the Sun? Almost everything. It went from being one of America's great newspapers to a total piece of shit. Many reporters left, off the top of my head, to NPR (Folkenflek, Tom Bowman and others) other papers(the brilliant Sibohan Gorman to the WSJ Stephen Hunter to the WaPo) still others were bought out (KAL, the best editorial cartoonist in the country). The front section is often only 8 pages; the advertising in that section is mostly foreclosure notices. The Evening Sun was said to be written for one address :1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Now its not written at all. If you're article isn't published in the WYT, WaPo or WSJ, getting into the Sun isn't much above this blog on the attention-getting scale. Its not that this isn't just a wonderful place, its just aa very small tree in our media forest.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | April 11, 2008 12:51 PM

Cripes, Roger...that's fascinating. I just assumed like fester did that Iran was betting on all sides. The closer you look at this thing the messier it gets.
Anyhow, just curious...what are your news sources? Seems like you've got the down-n-dirty on all this stuff.

Posted by kristi | April 11, 2008 5:23 PM

As Gareth Porter has pointed out, in fact there is no evidence that these "special groups" even exist. Some people were arrested who were called "special groups" - and al-Sadr demanded their release as part of his organization. So where they "breakaway factions" or not?

More importantly, whatever breakaway factions of the Mahdi Army exist, no one has ever determined how many or how large they are, or whether they have ANY connection with Iran at all.

And Petraeus has not laid down ONE piece of evidence for any of this other than his word. Not ONE.

Which is not surprising since the US has pitiful intelligence on most of the insurgencies and militias in Iraq. There are an estimated TWENTY-EIGHT militias in Iraq. Does the US have such great intelligence that it knows which ones have been to Iran, which ones have received materiel support from Iran, which ones have Iranian advisers (without, you'll note, EVER having captured ANY Iranians in Iraq who could be identified as such - the ONLY Iranians arrested in Iraq were demanded to be freed by either the Kurds or Maliki's crowd!), and so on?

It's all bullshit. Petraeus is a lying Bush-Cheney sock puppet. That's it.

Colonel Pat Lang claims there "hundreds of thousands" of Iranians in Iraq. So why hasn't the US managed to arrest ONE and make a charge of supporting terrorism in Iraq stick?

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 11, 2008 11:43 PM