And I worried that Iran' hand behind these death squads posed a danger of manipulating them to stage a fake popular uprising.
As we seem to be containing the Shia death squads, the danger of Iran alone rises. Just their support for the Iran stooges inside Iraq masks the decline of Sunni Arab enemies.
General Petraeus highlights Iran's role in prolonging the war in Iraq:
"Militias could potentially be the long-term problem for Iraq, if you assume that we can continue to make progress against al Qaeda," Gen. David Petraeus told CNN's Jim Clancy near the Iranian border in Iraq's Diyala province.
Petraeus is in a "show-me mode," waiting to see if Iran honors a pledge to stop the flow of arms, money and training from Iran into Iraq that has helped both Shiite and Sunni militants.
"Al Qaeda remains the wolf closest to the sled, if you will," he said. "The enemy that is always bent on reigniting sectarian violence, causing the most horrific casualties, damaging the infrastructure in the most difficult way. So you cannot lose focus on al Qaeda."
But, Petraeus added, there was "no question" that Iranian arms were ending up in the hands of the Iraqi militias and there was "no debate" that six Iranians detained by the U.S. military in northern Iraq are Iranian Quds force members -- the Iranian unit the United States accuses of training and arming insurgents.
"There's no question, absolutely no question that Iran is providing advanced RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades], RPG 29s," Petraeus said.
"It has provided some shoulder-fired, Stinger-like air-defense missiles. It has provided the explosively formed projectiles and it has provided 244 mm rockets, in addition to mortars, mortar rounds and other small-arms ammunition."
Petraeus also said the Iranians "are implicated in the assassination of some governors in the southern provinces."
He said one indication the Quds force controls Iranian policy is that Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazzem Qomi, is a member of the group. Qomi, who has diplomatic immunity, could not immediately be reached for a reaction.
Given that Iran fights us in a low level war and shells Iraqi territory to hit Kurds who fight Tehran, could we fight a low-level tit-for-tat war with Iran by hitting targets in Iran?
We did fight such a war in the Persian Gulf in 1987 and 1988. But I have serious doubts we could pull it off in today's media environment.
Ultimately, it's the regime that is the problem and not whether they support terror at a higher or lower rate.
But since we are winning in Iraq in an essentially defensive posture (I assume), would it be wise to escalate and risk adding an unknown variable to the mix? Is it better to ignore the "unfairness" of our domestic Left's tolerance for Iranian actions that kill our troops and murder Iraqi civilians, and simply suck it up?
I don't know. I do know that victory in Iraq will be a threat to the Iranian regime. I do know that we are winning in Iraq.
But I sure do wish we could make Iran pay for their killing of Americans by striking back.
One thing at a time, I suppose. Like I said, our victory in Iraq will threaten Iran.
