1115.org

(1)
One of the nuggets to emerge over the weekend out of the Triple-I sideshow is the fact that we apparently have documentary evidence that Iran has supplied arms to a leading Shi’ite faction in Iraq, a faction that controls a militia easily rivaling the Mehdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr.

The officials provided further details on the case of two Iranians captured during a December raid on the compound of a leading Shiite politician, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and five Iranians seized in the raid of a liaison office in the northern city of Irbil in January.

The raid at Hakim’s compound netted Mohsen Chirazi, whom U.S. officials described as a high-ranking Quds Force operations chief, as well as documents with information about sniper rifles and mortars, the officials said.

For some reason, the Bush regime isn’t making too much of this. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (aka SCIRI) is the largest party in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s coalition. Or the fact that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (who doesn’t just belong to SCIRI, but heads it) was an honored guest at the White House last December. And George Bush showered him with praise, in words that he would probably prefer us not to remember now. Specifically, Bush praised “His Eminence’s strong position against the murder of innocent life”.

So what happened after “a high-ranking Quds Force operations chief, as well as documents with information about sniper rifles and mortars” were found in the compound of His Eminence? Surely we didn’t look the other way, and just ignore it? Surely, we wouldn’t?

Sure enough, we didn’t. We asked some mighty tough questions, even though Ayatollah al-Hakim is a key ally. (Yes, apparently, that’s his proper title; funny how Bush never called him that during his White House visit, or at least not in front of people.) But the Ayatollah’s representatives cleared up the matter very nicely indeed:

The senior defense official said that when U.S. officials discussed the allegations with Hakim’s representatives, their explanation was that “it is normal for different groups to acquire armaments for protection purposes.”

So — given that we hold this truth to be self-evident, that the right to bear arms in self-defense is sacrosanct — we did the only proper thing. We let the whole thing drop. Right down to releasing Chirazi:

Following protests from Iraqi officials, the U.S. released Chirazi and the other Iranian captured with him.

A high-ranking Quds Force operations chief, caught red-handed in Iraq, knee-deep in arms shipment documents, and we just let him go? (Why do I get the feeling that somebody soon is going to be asking: “Who authorized that?” Somebody not necessarily of the Republican persuasion.)

And that’s not even the best part. The best part is that by no means can sniper rifles and mortars be described as defensive weapons. And this, apparently, is a fact that we have gone on record as being fully aware of:

… an American senior defense official said that the Iraqi government confirmed that Iranian armed forces gave weapons to an Iraqi political faction. And these included mortars and sniper rifles, weapons that the government said, well, this political faction needs for protection. But the U.S. said these are not protective weapons; these are weapons for attacking …

The U.S. said? Who exactly said it, and when, and to whom?

And when we decided it didn’t matter that these were attack weapons, not defensive weapons, what were we thinking? That attack is the best form of defense?

The reassuring thing, of course, is that we’re not fools. We know exactly what we’re doing. We just choose to look the other way.

(2)
In support of the statement above that SCIRI “controls a militia easily rivaling the Mehdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr”, we take you straight to the horse’s mouth. Here’s a statement from what purports to be SCIRI’s own official English language web site. On the web site, they brag about their militia, the Badr Corps:

Ayatollah Al Hakim started this force with a brigade called Badr Brigade which developed in to (sic) a division and then into a corps. […] The Badr corps consist (sic) of Infantry, Armoured, Artillery, Anti aircraft and commandos units. The training courses are supervised by Iraqi military officers and commanders who defected from Iraqi army.

(3)
Now to the difficult part, trying to make sense of the whole damn thing. Not an easy task, reconciling the outcome of the raid on the Ayatollah’s compound with our current efforts to prove that Iran is guilty of providing arms to Shi’ite militias.

Sunday’s Triple-I briefing in Baghdad has managed to attract widespread ridicule for how thin and dubious the so-called evidence is, widespread enough to keep the Pentagon feeling sorry for itself for a long time. It is much easier now, in retrospect, to understand the hesitation cuts they inflicted on themselves last week by postponing the briefing, and giving the explanation they did for postponing it.

There is no doubt that the decision was made a long time ago to make a public case that Iran was meddling in Iraq by providing arms to militias. The chant has been going on in the background for months. President Bush performed the official opening in his State of the Union speech.

It is also clear that we knew in advance that our case was pretty damn thin. That’s the best explanation for the hesitation cuts, the totally anonymous briefing (with two briefers who could not be identified in reports, and one whose identity was not even revealed to the reporters present) and the unprecedented rules (no cell phones, cameras or recording devices).

The need of the moment was clear and convincing evidence to clinch the case. We had the smoking gun in our hands: a high-ranking Quds Force officer, captured in Iraq, and documentary evidence of shipments of sniper rifles and mortars from Iran. And we simply released this man. And never used the documentary evidence.

Oh, wait a minute! It’s not difficult at all to make sense of the whole thing, is it?

Our singleminded focus in the Triple-I briefing was to build a case that arms from Iran are going to “rogue elements of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi army militia”. We don’t care about arms from Iran going to the Badr Corps. We have obviously decided who the good militias are, and who the bad militias are. In chronological sequence, the title of “Worst Person in Iraq” was handed down from Saddan Hussein to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi to Moqtada al-Sadr. And our marketing plans for Iraq admit of only one “Worst Person in Iraq” at a time.

So, for Iran to supply arms to the Badr Corps is perfectly okay. If we accidentally capture high-ranking Iranian officers engaged in doing so, our official policy is “catch-and-release”. If we accidentally acquire documentary evidence, our official policy is presumably “shred-or-classify”.

It is only when Iran supplies arms to the Mehdi Army that it becomes a provocation deserving of mighty retaliation. (When Saudi Arabia supports the Sunni insurgents who are responsible for far more American deaths than Shi’ite militias are, do we care? Not so much.)

All we really really want from Iran is that they exercise better judgment about who they supply mortars and sniper rifles to. Of course, there is no way Condi Rice is ever going to let anyone engage in direct dialogue with Iran while she is around. But can’t we just leak a list of approved Shi’ite militias to Judy Miller or Joe Lieberman or somebody of that ilk? (And if you have to ask what I mean by “that ilk”, you really haven’t been paying attention lately.)

One last thought. We have been doing a flourishing trade in insinuations that Nouri al-Maliki’s government is simply not serious about cracking down on Shi’ite militias, because he needs the support of their political sponsors to stay in power. In fact, goodness gracious me, that is the single biggest reason why Our Efforts in Iraq Have Not Borne Fruit so far.

After our determined display with the Badr Corps — our fine exhibition of how to shut your eyes, and bury your head in the sand and then, just to be safe, also look the other way — we should probably liquidate our remaining stock of these insinuations immediately.