Five O’Clock Follies
They may be the MNF-I instead of MAC-V, and in a desert country instead of a jungle, but the this is the same agitprop that was being shoveled out to the press when Dick’s last name was Nixon, not Cheney.
McClatchy reports: U.S. says Iranians train Iraqi insurgents
BAGHDAD – For the first time, the U.S. military said on Sunday that Iranian soldiers are in Iraq training insurgents to attack American forces.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a top U.S. commander who is in charge of a large swath of Iraq south of Baghdad, believes there are about 50 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps in his battlefield area, military spokeswoman Maj. Alayne Conway said.
Conway said that U.S.-led forces have not caught any of the Iranians, but she said military intelligence and recently discovered caches of weapons with Iranian markings on them indicate that the Iranians are there.
Lynch’s assertion is the latest in a series of accusations leveled by military officials against Iran. They have warned that Iraq’s neighbor is actively supplying Shiite insurgents – specifically, the Mahdi Army – with deadly weapons that have killed dozens of U.S. soldiers.
Juan Cole responds with a few questions
The US military hasn’t found any Iranian trainers in Iraq or any training camps, but like Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, that you can’t find them doesn’t mean they are not there. What I cannot understand is why the Pentagon needs Iranians in Iraq as a plot device. The Iraqi Badr Corps, tens of thousands strong, was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and it has been alleged that some Badr corpsmen are still on the Iranian payroll. It is the paramilitary of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, America’s chief ally in Iraq. What would the IRGC know that Badr does not?
Understand, the Badr Corps is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, but the US keeps claiming that it is the Mahdi Army that is getting all of this help. Moqtada al Sadr is not a fan of Iran and there have been numerous battles in the south between the Badr Corps and Mahdi Army. There is no logic in these assertions. Like the claimed support for the Taliban, these lies make no rational sense to anyone who has watched the area. The problem is that the US wants to attack Iran and it can’t do it unless everyone forgets that Iran opposed Saddam and helped anti-Saddam forces like the Kurds and the Badr Corps. Iran opposed the Taliban and helped the Northern Alliance fight the Taliban. Iran was on the same side as the US in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran allied itself with the same people that the US now allies itself.
“The friend of our friend is our enemy” – what the hell kind of logic is that?
11 comments
“… what the hell kind of logic is that?” – Bryan
The kind that says “it’s us against them, and all the ‘thems’ are the same.”
<bush_cheney_think> I know. Let’s start wars against all countries not proved not to have armed our alleged enemies. That’ll show ’em. </bush_cheney_think>
This is the kind of thing that gives you migraine if you think about it too long. Moqtada al Sadr is the obvious choice to hand this mess to and leave. He is the only player that actually wants the country of Iraq with no outside control. He is the only one who maintains ties with Sunnis and Kurds.
We keep attacking this guy, who is no more or less of a vicious bastard than anyone else with power in Iraq, when he is the only one who could give us an easy out.
but if al sadr wants us to leave, and we do, then it would mean we’d tucked our tail between our legs and cut and run and that would mean all our brave men and women had died in vain.
blast from the past: who is muqtada al-sadr? meh. just some youg whippersnapper with no following.
They have been after him forever because one of the first things he would do is start hanging a few Chalabis to prove he doesn’t like US/Iranian triple agents and conmen.
He has the allegiance of a couple of million in Baghdad’s Sadr city slum and a militia as large as the Multinational Force-I [MNF-I]. Sooner or later, someone in command is going to be forced to figure out that we really don’t want to have a pitched battle with this guy.
Bryan, they already figured out that we really don’t want to have a pitched battle with this guy. Last time we did, it ended with a stalemate, one of Shia Islam’s holy cities almost totally destroyed, and we had to bug out of there quickly because we were one more bomb away from the entire Shiite population rising up in rage and completely suffocating our over-extended troops. But similarly, Muqtada really doesn’t want to get into a pitched battle with us either, because while he’d probably win, our soldiers are a nice counterweight to the former Iraqi Army, which is now the Sunni resistance, and then he’d have to go up against them — and he’s far more afraid of them than he is of us. Stalemate. Hopefully it stays that way. Probably will, unless the Busheviks do something really insane…
I get along with rattlesnakes, gators, sharks, and bears because I don’t go around poking them with a stick.
The US keeps poking the Mahdi Army and the civilian population that supports it.
We need to get out of that mess and let those people take care of their business in their way.
I figure the Badr Corps and Mahdi Army will hang together just long enough to take on the Sunnis, then turn on each other. The Peshmerga will hold the southern border of Kurdistan.
It’s going to be a mess, but things have gone too far to stop it now. The most we are doing is postponing the inevitable, and dying to do it.
Remember the minute al-Maliki went to Iran on a diplomatic outreach, we attacked al-Sadr’s area of Baghdad. I posted about it here.
The current Iraqi government knows they are in major trouble if al Sadr gets really ticked off. The “green zone” would cease to exist if the Mahdi Army decides to attack it.
Malaki needs al Sadr to support him or abstain to keep a government. If Moqtada al Sadr decides to openly opposed him, the current government is toast. People forget that the al Sadr delegates are among the few members of parliament who actually show up for meetings and vote.
Preaching to the choir when it comes to getting out of there and letting them solve their own problems. After four years of misery it should be clear by now that nobody in the U.S. has the credibility, or, likely, the expertise, to “solve” anything at all in Iraq. Best we can do is withdraw to the borders, let them fight it out to a conclusion, and reward the winner with some hefty rebuilding cash. A lot of it might end up in Swiss bank accounts, but (shrug). Not our problem.
i’d vote for just dropping cash down onto their heads from airplanes. preferably as we’re leaving.
BT, when you deal with a man convicted of bank fraud like Chalabi you have to assume a huge chunk is going to end up in a numbered account. They lost around $10 billion without trying and don’t have meters on their oil ports.
Agreed, Not our problem. We need to stop killing and stop dying.
Hipparchia, I don’t doubt that some of that happened already, although probably not intentionally. Loadmasters tend to be less that careful when unloading cargo in hot zones, even if the cargo is pallets of cash.