by CKR
Juan Cole was speaking in Santa Fe Friday night. I think the talk will eventually be posted here.
He made one point in particular that I think needs to be made in a short, succinct way. He’s said it before on his blog and in his articles, but I want to make it as clear as I can.
Many of Iraq’s current leaders were exiles in Iran. SCIRI (Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq), developed in Iran. Earlier this year, it changed its name to the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). Wikipedia lists some of the major Iraqi figures who have been members of SCIRI/SIIC. Cole gives a more detailed history. The US has supported SCIRI since before the invasion of Iraq. Its leader is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a former commander of the Badr Corps, which was the military arm of SCIRI. It was largely trained in Iran. Hakim visited President Bush in December 2006, when Bush expressed his support for him.
I hope I’ve got all this right. Cole is one of numerous other bloggers who understand Iraqi politics better than I do.
The bottom line, as I understand what Cole said, is that the US has encouraged Iraqi political parties with strong ties to Iran, which has also provided military training to members of those parties. So it would not be surprising if those parties’ Iranian friends and trainers visited them in Iraq. And maybe that’s where Iraqis learned to fabricate and use the explosively-formed projectiles that the Bush administration is now trying to use as a casus belli.