Timing is everything

May 27, 2006 in 4GW, intelligence and stupidity, Iran, Iraq, logistics, NOIA, Sadr, SCIRI, war

Remember all the waffle about Iran supposedly arming the Sunni insurgents (despite it being wildly contrary to Iranian interests)? Well, I think it may be gradually turning into a case of being right too early. Not that the New-Old Iraqi Army is getting arms from Iran, but that somebody may be trying to build up a countervailing power to the hitherto Iranian-supported SCIRI.

Take a look at this report about how Basra, once an even break between SCIRI and the Sadr movement, is now under the control of a third, heterodox Shia party (Fadhila), who are applying the oil weapon to the SCIRI/Dawa-majority central government.

Now consider a stub in Private Eye this week regarding the latest IED innovation in the south. Supposedly “somebody” there has got the knowledge of how to make passive infrared-triggered, compressed gas bombs “from Iran”. Guerrilla fuel-air explosive! Scarequotes because (I think I’ve said before) that getting the information on how to make them is no longer a serious problem. They use the Internet after all, and they have access to smart people (Iraq had a space programme up to 1991).

But I think there is a possibility that Iran is concerned that SCIRI is not enough, that it is getting too close to the Sunnis and also the Sadrists, and that therefore they need counter-leverage. After all, why would the Badr Corps attack British troops in the deep south? They’re the government! Why would Sadr do so now? And anyway, he and his loathe Iran. I wonder if the Fadhila is being built up as “the real resistance” to undermine Sadr, or else whether support to the pro-Iran side is leaking to Sadr?

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