Perhaps lost in this article about the surge are these two interesting points that contradict this conventional wisdom assumption:
As the U.S. begins reversing the expansion of troop strength — back to the pre-surge levels of about 130,000 — Iran has quietly placed itself in the control room of Iraq's future. Tehran has major military and political tools available to it until U.S. forces eventually leave and has sunk deep roots inside the country's fertile Shiite political power structure.
The first point:
Iran has shunned the Mahdi Army, but has continued sending arms, fighters and money into Iraq. The leaders of these groups of fighters take orders from Iran and are known as the Ettelaat, shorthand for Iranian intelligence.
The Iraqi officials who spoke to the AP said that after al-Sadr announced a freeze on his militia in August, the Iranians sent in seven Ettelaat commanders — Iraqis loyal to Iran who had been training and handling elite Mahdi Army groups in Iran. These at the time had broken with the mainstream militia over the freeze.
The commanders were said to have slowly infiltrated with more than 1,000 men armed and trained by Iran, with orders to continue harassing the Americans with roadside bombings, mortar and rocket attacks — a one-year high of 12 on the Army's 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division in January alone, the military said.
The second point:
The Ettelaat force in Iraq is recruiting more fighters from among disaffected Mahdi Army foot soldiers and commanders of the so-called "special groups," not only to keep American forces off balance but also as a sleeper brigade that would open all-out warfare should the United States attack Iran, a real fear in Tehran, the Iraqi officials said.
So, the assumption is that Iran has deep roots in Iraq and Iran will be able to indirectly run Iraq once we draw down our strength?
But the Iranians feel they need to send in their own people to ensure that somebody inside Iraq is willing to fight American forces on behalf of Iran?
And one reason that the Iranians need such a force--whether the Iraqis want it or not--is that Iran fears we will attack Iran?
How can this be? How can Iran fear we will invade when everyone knows that the Iraq War has made us incapable of fighting anywhere else?
And why would Iran need to infiltrate their own people into an Iraq seething with pro-Iranian sentiment to ensure some type of fighting in our rear areas should we attack Iran?
It's almost as it Persian Iran doesn't have any particular call on Arab Iraqi loyalty. Heck, the Iranians already botched it once in assuming they could back Sadr as a Tehran proxy force:
Politically, Iran has now cut ties with al-Sadr, having decided his usefulness as a tactical tool against American forces has run its course. Now, the officials said, Iran has thrown its full backing behind the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the country's most powerful Shiite political insider.
I don't worry so much about Iran controlling Iraq. Sure, some leaders in Iraq are willing to accept Iranian support for their own Iraqi goals. But that doesn't mean they are willing to be stooges for Iran. Look at what that got Sadr. And Iranian hopes that the Shias would rise up against Saddam during the bloody eight-year Iran-Iraq War didn't pan out at all.
By their deeds, the Iranians worry that Iraq is a base of attack on Iran and don't believe those Arab Shias (let alone the Arab Sunnis or Kurds) pine for Tehran's bloody embrace.
It's early in the new year yet. Try not to panic too much already. The Iranians have reason to worry far more about Iraq's threat to Tehran. Tehran's track record and recent actions clearly show this.
