LAT: Iraq edges closer to Iran, with or without the U.S.

[kskiska]

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government is moving to solidify relations with Iran, even as the United States turns up the rhetorical heat and bolsters its military forces to confront Tehran's influence in Iraq.

Iraq's foreign minister, responding to a U.S. raid on an Iranian office in Irbil in northern Iraq last week, said Monday that the government intended to transform similar Iranian agencies into consulates. The minister, Hoshyar Zebari, also said the government planned to negotiate more border entry points with Iran.

The U.S. military is still holding five Iranians detained in Thursday's raid. Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said records seized in the raid and statements made by the detainees showed that at least some of them worked for Iran's intelligence service.

"I don't think there is any disagreement on the fact that these folks that we have captured are foreign intelligence agents in this country, working with Iraqis to destabilize Iraq and target coalition forces that are here at Iraq's request," Casey said Monday.

more…
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iranians16jan16,0,2678083.story

[leveymg]

1. When did Iraq invite American troops to invade and occupy their country?

I'm not talking about Ahmed Chalabi.

[Kagemusha]

2. Did Casey listen to what he just said?

They're foreign intelligence agents in Iraq, working WITH IRAQIS to DESTABILIZE IRAQ, and target coalition forces, there AT IRAQ'S REQUEST?????

Did he just say that with a straight face and not ask why the hell Iraq requested its own destabilization?

[leftchick]

3. break down the sentence

I believe he is sayng two different things but should have inserted insurgents into the first half. Replace it with Iraqis and it makes some sense, to him anyway.

"They're foreign intelligence agents in Iraq, working with insurgents to destabilize Iraq, and target coalition forces, there at Iraq's request."

I believe he is sayng the Iranians are hanging with the bad guys and the coalition forces, being there at the government's request are being targeted.

Too bad he has not addressed there is no difference between the Iraqi bad guys and the Iraqi government and the fact that the Iranians are there at the Governments request.


:crazy:

I can clearly see how this is FUBAR for US forces. Anyone else?

[Kagemusha]

4. Thank you, though the fact Iraq says it did invite the Iranians is confusing

On multiple levels. But that's not *really* Casey's fault. He just did nothing to help.

It's still quite a mess, yes. I'm more concerned about what I'm reading about Bush's surge strategy - or tactics, if you will - being, to take away tactical mobility from US forces and make them stay and fight the enemy up-front on his home turf (what the US would regard as disputed turf between the US and insurgents, and what Bagdhadis would regard as disputed turf between Sunnis and Shiites).

[leftchick]

5. they will be in the middle of their civil war

and it is why congress needs to try and stop this insanity. I read this yesterday, an interview with a Sunni cleric. It really sheds light on how awful this is going to be.....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sunnis15jan15,1,2712566.story?coll=la-headlines-world


Bush's plan to add troops fueling Iraq insurgency, Sunni scholar says
By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer
January 15, 2007

AMMAN, JORDAN — President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq has inflamed passions among the restive Sunni Arab minority, bringing new recruits to insurgent cells and outpourings of popular anger toward the U.S., the spokesman for the country's most hard-line Sunni clerical group declared Sunday.

"Iraq is like a fire," said Mohammed Bashar Faidi, spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Assn. "Instead of putting water on the fire, Bush is pouring gasoline."

The association, which says it represents thousands of clerics throughout Iraq, shares the aims of the Sunni Arab insurgency. But it also reflects the views of a significant segment of the Sunni Arab population, which has largely turned to Islamic political ideologies since the downfall of the secular Arab nationalism represented by Saddam Hussein's regime.

During a 90-minute interview in his Amman office, Faidi voiced views that illustrated the seemingly unbridgeable gulfs between Iraq's Shiite Muslim-led government, the Sunni guerrilla movement fighting it and the U.S., which in the long term hopes to draw down its troops without permitting Iraq to slip further into sectarian civil war.

[LynnTheDem]

6. "coalition forces that are here at Iraq's request..."

WOW that's a WHOPPER!

[Kagemusha]

7. They just weren't requested originally.

Now that the current govt needs US forces in the Green Zone to survive with their lives, that counts as a "request" now, I guess.

[bemildred]

8. Maliki needs new buddies to shore up his regime.

The writing is on the wall as far as US support, so expect to see more of this sort of attempt to obtain bi-lateral support from neighbors. Expect the partition of Iraq to proceed apace, too, as part of the price of supporting Maliki and his "government".

[roamer65]

9. How is it different than the US, Gen Casey?

Many of our embassy staff actually work for the NSA or CIA, rather than the State Dept.