IPS News 04/07/08 that our Savior-General Petraeus will likely be pumping up the alleged Iranian role in the Iraqi resistance this week:
The interest of Bush administration in keeping the proxy war line alive has nothing to do with Iraqi realities ... As a strategic weapon for justifying the administration's policies toward both Iraq and Iran, the theme of Iranian interference through "Special Groups" is bound to be a central thread in the testimony by both Petreaus Congressional testimony [sic] next week.The Shi'a parties to which Iran has the closest relationship are the government parties in Iraq. While Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army (JAM) takes a friendly posture toward Iran - Muqtada himself is reported to be studying in the Iranian city of Qom - JAM has not been as close to Iran historically. Porter writes:
The Madhi Army has received training in both Lebanon and in Iran and has undoubtedly used financial assistance from Iran to procure weapons. But Sadr revealed in his al-Jazeera interview that he had told Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on a trip to Iran that he did not agree with the "political and military interests" that Tehran had pursued in Iraq. That was an apparent reference to Iran's pronounced tilt toward Sadr's Shiite rivals who remain in power with joint U.S.-Iranian support.Tags: gareth porter, iraq war, iran
Ironically, when Iranian President Mahmound Ahmadinejad visited Iraq in early March, both [Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri] al-Maliki and Supreme Council chief Abdul Aziaz al-Hakim publicly dissociated themselves from the U.S. "proxy war" line, insisting that Iran was restraining Sadr rather than egging him on.
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