Negotiating an Iraqi ceasefire in Iran(!)
For six days the new American-trained Iraqi army was unable to wrest control of the southern oil port of Basra from Moktada al Sadr’s Shi’ite militia. Then Mr. Sadr suspended the battle and demanded concessions.
That’s the news. We’ve all heard it. But something is buried in the news that calls into question all the claims by George Bush and John McCain and Dick Cheney and others that the surge is working: senior Iraqi officials had to go to Iran to negotiate the end of fighting with Mr. Sadr.
Iran, that bastion of goodwill for the United States where the mullahs howl for Israel’s destruction. This is the surge making headway? Towards what? Iranian hegemony in the region?
We were the ones who helped Saddam Hussein fight Iran. We’re supposed to be the Arab states’ ally—and the Iraqi government we support goes to Iran to negotiate the end of a battle it wasn’t able to win.
No one in the Arab world can take any comfort in this, not even our bitterest enemies. Al Qaeda, a Sunni extremist cult, can now say to the Arab moderates, Look what America has done for you—it has handed Iraq over to our old enemy, the Shi-ite Iranians.
Does the so-called of the surge mean we have achieved the almost impossible task of helping both Al Qaeda and Iran? The most influential Shi-ite cleric in Iraq is operating out of Iran, and hat in hand the Iraqi government is calling on him, because he, not us, holds the right cards.—DM
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