When Will They Learn
Perhaps it’s just to annoy people, but the BBC has a tendency to interview Frank J. Gaffney Jr. of the Center for Security Policy, a neocon think tank, about Iraq.
The man is an ignorant fool who has not made a minimal effort to understand the major players in Iraq. He made constant references to Moqtada al Sadr and Iran, at one point calling him “a puppet of Iran.”
Al Sadr is an Iraqi nationalist, and may be the only major player who wants all foreigners, not just the Americans out of Iraq. He has his own forms of madness, but working with the Iranians isn’t one of them.
Gaffney probably approved of the Shrubbery’s outreach to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq [SCIRI] and associated with the Badr Organization militia. The SCIRI backed Iran in the Iran-Iraq War. They spent much of the Saddam years living in Iran. They have unquestioned ties to Iran and the Revolutionary Guard. They want a theocratic government, just like Iran.
Gaffney et al. may have a problem finding the Madhi army, because, as Swopa notes, Nobody here but us death squads. They are hanging loose waiting for their official Iraqi government uniforms, just like the ones the Badr Organization already has.
I like Monty Python as much as the next guy, but the BBC shouldn’t do these improv versions during the news.
