This ought to be interesting:
American troops seized and then released the eldest son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, perhaps the most powerful Shiite political leader in Iraq, after he crossed the border from Iran into Iraq on Friday morning.
Who is Hakim? This guy:
President Bush's encounter at the White House today with Iraqi Shiite politician Abdul Aziz al-Hakim—seldom result in sweeping policy shifts. . . . So what signal, exactly, is President Bush trying to send by meeting with Hakim, one of the most revered, but also controversial, Shiite figures in Iraq?
So the Sunni, Al Qaida, Sadr and now SCIRI are the bad guys in Iraq? Any "good" guys left? Well, Chalabi is always available . . . More.
So you think this has something to do with Iran?
In an interview after he was released from an American military base in Kut, Amar al-Hakim said that American forces had treated him roughly and that their justification for seizing him — that he crossed the border with an invalid passport — was untrue.
. . . The detention worsened relations with the Hakims — who spent years in exile in Iran and remain close to Tehran — two months after American forces raided the Hakims’ elaborate Baghdad compound near the Green Zone and detained two Iranians whom they accused of running guns and planning sectarian attacks.
. . . The detention led to a large demonstration in front of the offices of Mr. Hakim’s party in Basra by a crowd protesting the son’s treatment. A senior Sciri party official in Najaf, Sadr al-Din al-Qubanchi, called for a demonstration there. "This will shake the stability, and it’s an insult to the Iraqi Shiite alliance and its leadership," he said.
Of course, the ridiculous aspect of all this is the United States fights a war essentially on behalf of an Iraqi government beholden to Iran:
Anyone who had a brain should have at least thought about the fact that deposing Saddam was a great favor to Iran and the Iranian supported Shiite factions, SCIRI, DAWA and Sadr. For example, these two men anticipated the situation in September 2002:
SEN. CLELAND: And if you took out Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party, the secularist party, don't the Sunnis and the Shi'ite Muslims make up a majority of the population in Iraq, and wouldn't that give Iran a strong hand there, and we ultimately end up creating a Muslim state, even under democratic institutions?
GEN. CLARK: Yes, sir. I think that there is a substantial risk in the aftermath of the operation that we could end up with a problem which is more intractable than we have today.
One thing we're pretty clear on is that Saddam has a very effective police state apparatus. He doesn't allow challenges to his authority inside that state. When we go in there with a transitional government and a military occupation of some indefinite duration, it's also very likely that if there is an effective al Qaeda left -- and there certainly will be an effective organization of extremists -- they will pour into that country because they must compete for the Iraqi people; the Wahabes with the Sunnis, the Shi'as from Iran working with the Shi'a population. So it's not beyond consideration that we would have a radicalized state, even under a U.S. occupation in the aftermath.
. . . Let's be clear where we are now -- the best case scenario for the Iraq Debacle is the defeat of the Sunni insurgency so that an Iran supporting theocratic Shiite government can wield absolute power. That is what we are fighting for.
But Cheney dreams of bigger things. Teheran. And the road to Teheran runs through Baghdad. We must end the US involvement in Iraq to stop BushCo from provoking war with Iran. This is the top priority. Or it should be.