Apr

Meet the “Most Powerful Man in Iraq”. He Isn’t Iraqi.

I”m at a bit of a loss to describe this article from the McClatchy News Service. On one hand, I’m given to discounting much of what comes from McClatchy as biased and distorted, because it generally is. On the other hand, it is one of the most solid articles on Iraq I’ve read by anyone in the MSM.

There’s a lot to digest here, but the upshot of the story is that the most powerful man in all of Iraq is the Iranian commander of the Quds Force. It is a stunning expose of Iran’s efforts to co-opt everything our soldiers have done in Iraq and to subtly overthrow Iraqi democracy and liberty and how our government has essentially pulled its punches in dealing with him and the Mullahs who command him. I’m skeptical about how much of it is actually true (considering that only one of the correspondents is in Iraq, and she’s in Baghdad) but if it’s only mostly true, it’s a heck of a revelation. We should have been pushing Iran to leave Iraq alone from the very beginning, but our dealings with Mad Mahmoud and the Mullahs has been one of blustering from a distance and surrendering up close. So long as we refuse to deal with Iran firmly, the Islamists will continue to kill Americans.

Allahpundit notes that the article is being used on the left as a bludgeon and says that we should:

File it away now, for eventual citation when the Democrats revert to their normal posture of claiming Iran’s just the latest Republican Zionist patsy pretext for war.

Yes, I’m sure that will happen. But file it away, also, for when Iran begins to rattle its nuclear sabre once more. Remember just who is doing what in Iraq and consider if you want a nuclear iran to have quite as much sway in the region as it’s getting.

Tags: Iran, Iraq, Islamism, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Quds Force

Posted by Jimmie Anti-Americanism, Fighting the Islamists Subscribe to RSS feed

One Response to “Meet the “Most Powerful Man in Iraq”. He Isn’t Iraqi.”

spoots says:
May 2, 2008 at 01:14
The most powerful man in Iraq is, in fact, an Iranian, but it’s not the guy in the article. Meet Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistani
From the article:
In Iraq, Iran’s chief ally has been the Badr Organization, formerly the paramilitary wing of what’s now the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the country’s largest Shiite political party. During the Iran-Iraq war, Badr operated as a wing of the Iranian military; after the toppling of Saddam, Badr members infiltrated the security forces and were believed to be responsible for torturing and killing jailed Sunnis.
Did you know that the leader of the Badr org visited the White House and is one of our chief allies in Iraq?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news.....04-7.html#
As for this:
One of Suleimani’s first major victories against the United States in Iraq, however, was the product of political shrewdness, not military force. It came in January 2005, when Iraqis voted for the first time since Saddam’s ouster nearly two years earlier.
The Bush administration pulled out all the stops to keep secular, pro-Western interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi in office, aiding him with broadcast airtime, slick campaign ads and veteran advisers.
Suleimani countered with a covert PR campaign on behalf of a bloc of conservative pro-Iran Shiites that he helped assemble, and he sent printing presses, consultants and broadcasting equipment, said a senior Iraqi official who’s known Suleimani for years. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive relationship between Iraq and Iran.
When the ballots were counted, Bush pointed to the purple-dyed fingers of Iraqi voters as a triumph for democracy — but Allawi and his bloc were out and Iran’s allies were in.
Allawi had no native support, and you couldn’t expect a secular person to win at that time, either. Plus he was just a big fraudster anyhow. And of course Iraqi Shiite groups that had been sheltered by Iran during Saddam’s time won the elections, simply because the population is mostly Shiite.
J: “to subtly overthrow Iraqi democracy and liberty”
Maybe just the American overlay. Of course they want to affect things in Iraq. Can you imagine if Russia had invaded Mexico– you can be damn sure we would be making our desires known there and be deeply infiltrated (as well as simply having a lot of friends).