It's Going To Be A Busy Anniversary

By Cernig

Today, Tuesday 8th April, Petraeus and Crocker go to the Hill to make the case for Staying the Course, Part Umpteenth. They'll be questioned by all three presidential candidates, all looking to score campaign points off each other. And then Congress will rubberstamp agree that the saintly General should have his next Friedman Unit - another six months - and incidentally hand the neocons ammunition for their wished-for war with Iran, because their lives will be easier that way, with no criticism from the howling Right of how they are spitting on the troops' sacrifices or being defeatist enablers of the worldwide Caliphate.

The day after that happens to be the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad and Sadr has called for a million people to march through the capital (he moved it there from Najaf for greater impact) in protest at the current Maliki regime crackdown on his movement.

What great timing, eh? What moron thought that scheduling Petraeus' testimony anywhere within 2 weeks of the anniversary of the beginning of a long occupation was a good idea? Someone who thought it would make good political hay Stateside and didn't give a chit what Iraqis might think, that's who.

Oh, and just to sweeten the pie, the Iranians are backing Maliki's crackdown on the Sadrists - making a mockery of the National Review Narrative that Sadr is in bed with the Iranians but not Maliki and his Dawa/SIIC brethren - who mostly spent their exiles in Iran and many of whom get pensions from the Revolutionary Guards.

But just in case Rich Lowry and the other spinners at NRO reply that you can't trust the Iranians (except when they're claiming nuclear advances), let's take it straight from the SIIC horse's mouth:

Iran helped end last week's fighting between Iraqi government troops and a Shi'ite militia in Iraq's oil-rich south, an adviser to a leading Iraqi Shi'ite politician was quoted as saying on Friday.

Mohsen Hakim, whose father Abdul Aziz al-Hakim heads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, underlined Shi'ite Iran's growing influence in Iraq after the U.S.-led overthrow of Sunni Arab strongman Saddam Hussein in 2003.

..."Tehran, by using its positive influence on the Iraqi nation, paved the way for the return of peace to Iraq and the new situation is the result of Iran's efforts," Hakim was quoted as saying, without giving further details.

It's ironic that about the only thing that could cause the Badrists to abandon their support for the US occupation, which enables their own political survival at present, would be the attack on Iran the neocons within the Bush administration and McCain's advisory team want so much.

Interesting times.