Slogan at Shi'ite Friday prayers in Iraq is "Death to America."

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HI22Ak01.html

US troops in Iraq are Tehran's 'hostages'
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - For many months, the administration of US George W Bush has been complaining that Iranian meddling in Iraq is a threat to the country's stability and to US troops. The irony of this publicity campaign over Tehran's alleged bid to undermine the occupation is that Iran may well be the main factor holding up a showdown between militant Shi'ites and US forces.

The underlying reality in Iraq, which the Bush administration does not appear to grasp fully, is that the United States is now dependent on the sufferance of Iran and its Iraqi Shi'ite political-military allies to continue the occupation.

Three and a half years after the occupation began, the US military is no longer the real power in Iraq. As the chief of intelligence for the US Marine Corps revealed in a recent report, US troops have been unable to shake the hold that Sunni insurgents have on the vast western province of al-Anbar.

But the main threat to the occupation comes not from the Sunni insurgents but from the militant Iraqi Shi'ite forces aligned with Iran, led by Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army. The armed Shi'ite militias are now powerful enough to make it impossible for the US occupation to continue. snip

By last spring, the political atmosphere in the Shi'ite community was seething with hatred of the US and support for war against the occupation forces. In a May 6 story, Borzou Daraghi of the Los Angeles Times quoted a spokesman for the Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi Moderessi in Karbala, known in the past as a moderate, as saying the slogan at Friday prayers is "Death to America." The ayatollah reported that people were preparing for a military showdown with the US, saying, "The Americans won't leave except by the funerals of their sons."

If Muqtada and his followers are already preparing for a showdown with the US occupation forces, the only factor that appears to be restraining the Mehdi Army now is Iran. After all, Tehran's interest lies not in forcing an immediate withdrawal of US forces, but in keeping them in Iraq as virtual hostages. The potential threat to US forces in Iraq in retaliation for an attack on Iran is probably Tehran's most effective deterrent to such an attack.

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1. Well, BushCo is trying very hard to make their prayers come true. n/t