The Iranians arrested in Iraq were crafting Shia strategy

The BBC has more on the five Iranians arrested in Iraq in December. According to the BBC, they weren't meeting to coordinate violence, but instead to assess Maliki's government and presumably to advise/coordinate the broader Shia strategy.

Five Iranians arrested by US troops in Baghdad last month were on a covert mission to influence Iraq's government, British officials have told the BBC.....

They said that the arrested men were in Iraq to hold high-level meeting with representatives of several Iraqi Shia factions.

"There was discussion of whether the [Prime Minister Nouri] Maliki government would succeed, who should be in which ministerial jobs," one official told the programme.....

Washington now wants the Iranians concerned to be banned from returning to Iraq.

The Iraqi government is reportedly considering such a step.

Let's remember that this took place in SCIRI leader al-Hakim's compound, the same al-Hakim who the Bush administration brought to Washington to try to sway away from Iran less than a month before.

"It was a very significant meeting."