Gareth Porter: New Iraqi alignment reveals US failure

[unhappycamper]

New Iraqi alignment reveals US failure
By Gareth Porter
Oct 27, 2010

WASHINGTON - A newly released WikiLeaks document on Iraq and the new political alignment between Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki both provide fresh evidence that General David Petraeus's war against Shi'ite militias in 2007-2008 was a futile exercise.

The WikiLeaks document is an intelligence report identifying the Shi'ite commander who Petraeus said was the Iranian-backed rogue militia leader behind the kidnapping and killing of five US troops in Karbala in January 2007. In fact, according to the leaked document, it was a commander of Muqtada's Mahdi Army.

That new information about the Karbala operation confirms earlier evidence that in 2007 a political axis linking Iran, Muqtada and Maliki was working to foil Petraeus' assault on the Mahdi Army and to hasten the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

That political alignment is not a reflection of Iranian dominance over Iraqi politics, but of a convergence of interests among Shi'ite actors in the Iraq conflict.

The same political alignment has now resurfaced as a pivotal development in the formation of a new Iraqi government. Maliki and Muqtada have agreed to form a new Shi'ite-dominated government, and Maliki traveled to Iran last week to meet Muqtada and publicly thanked Iran for its help in bringing Muqtada into his bloc of deputies.

[jaxx]

1. It looks like the only way they'll do everything right is for the US to stay there

forever. That should make the critics happy.