Iraqi Shi'ite politicians to US: enough with the Iran bashing

[sabra]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1333861,00.html

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Many Shi'ite politicians dismiss as scape-goating the statements by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and generals at the Pentagon that Iran is actively arming and training Sh'ite militias in Iraq. "They are looking for somebody to blame for the failure and it is easy to blame Iran," said Hadi al-Amiri, who heads the Iraqi parliament's security and defense committee, while also running the Badr Organization, a Shi'ite militia.

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Renewed Tehran-bashing in Washington is unlikely to sit well with Iraqi Shi'ite politicians, who make up the dominant block of parliament. Like Hakim and al-Amiri, many leading figures in the Iraqi government are beholden to Iran for its support of the anti-Saddam movement. The Dawa party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (and former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari) also owes its survival during the Saddam years to Tehran. Antagonizing the Shi'ite block could complicate U.S. efforts to end the civil war and draw down American troops in Iraq.

Even Shi'ite leaders who didn't live in Iran have close ties to their co-sectarians and have condemned U.S. efforts to pressure Tehran into abandoning its nuclear program. The radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has warned that if the U.S. launches a military campaign against Iran, his militia, the Mahdi Army, will fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the Iranians.

Leaders like Hakim say that rather than blame Iran or the Shi'ite militias, the U.S. military — and Iraqi security forces — should be focusing its energies on defeating the mainly Sunni insurgent and terrorist groups. "The main cause of the violence in Iraq are the Saddamists and ," Hakim said. "We should not be distracted from our main task, which is to destroy these forces. "