The "meta" on Basra/Iran's game of safety

After all the US charges that the Iranians are the main driver of violence in Iraq, it is definitely in Iran's propaganda interests to have the Shia in Iraq (and secondarily the rest of the world) know that they were the ones who stopped the fighting in Basra.

So it's significant that Sadr, and now al Hakim's son, are directly crediting them.

In effect, they're undermining the US case against Iran as instigator among the population most likely to make such an attack untenable.

British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.....

A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies.

We always discuss Iran as an isolated decision. What happens to the US if the Shia of Iraq "respond" to any such activity against Iran? That's an awfully exposed "flank."

(AP) "U.S. forces are pushing Shiite militias farther from the Green Zone in an attempt to put the area out of range for rockets and mortars that have recently pounded the diplomatic and government enclave..... The strategy — which targets the southern outskirts of the Shiite district of Sadr City....."