While most Americans (and the writers on and visitors to this site, as well as most of the media) remained largely focused on the race for the democratic nomination (and the subject of race within that race), a little war within a war erupted last week in Iraq, and then ended rather quickly in what many are calling a stalemate between rival Shia parties and militias. Said war in Basra ended, according to almost every reliable news source, because of Iranian intervention.
Iran, extremely close to all the Shia politicians and militia leaders in post-Saddam Iraq, brokered a cease-fire between Iraqi security forces and the Mahdi Army, headed by Moqtada al-Sadr, who is currently residing in Iran (commuting between Tehran and Qom to complete his religious studies at the seminaries there), and some reports have suggested that the commander of the Qods Force of the Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Qasem Soleimani, a terrorist in charge of a terrorist organization by U.S. definition, and someone close to both Sadr and to SIIC (formerly SCIRI) leader Hakim (both of whom his organization supported during the Saddam era) played a, if not the, key role.
However, our man in Baghdad and the top-ranking U.S. civilian in Iraq, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, on Thursday this week claimed that he was "not aware of what role, if any, Iran had played in Sadr's decision" (to call for a cease-fire). Gee, that should make everyone feel good. From the Bush administration apparently being caught unaware of the impending clash, to John McCain's "surprise" at the intensity of it, and now to our ambassador unaware of how the fighting ended, the sheer incompetence of the administration (and those who supported the surge) in its Iraq adventure would be the stuff of comedy, were it not so tragic.
Now if Ambassador Crocker was merely lying because his government cannot bring itself to admit that a member of the "axis of evil", one that we do not talk to, can actually get the U.S. out of a jam of its own making, then that in itself is tragic not because of the lie but because it means lost opportunity after lost opportunity after lost American lives. If he's telling the truth and he was indeed "unaware" of Iranian involvement, then it's high time he retired, closed down the behemoth that is the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and wished the Iranians Godspeed and good luck in fixing the Iraq that we seem to have broken. Because, after all, it seems that they might be the only ones who can.