Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Iran behind unrest in Basra

Con Coughlin:

British military intelligence officers believe that Iranian Revolutionary Guards are responsible for training and supporting members of the Shi'ite group that seized and threatened to kill two British troopers in Basra last week.
They are investigating suspected links between Iran and more than a dozen groups in southern Iraq that are believed to be behind the upsurge in attacks on coalition forces.
"We know that scores of Iranian agents have been operating in southern Iraq, and we have received reports that the group that briefly held the two British soldiers has links to Iran," said a senior coalition security officer. "From what we have seen, the Iranians are setting out to incite the local Shia to attack coalition troops."
The two soldiers, who were working undercover and wore Arab dress, were arrested on Monday by police after reportedly killing an Iraqi policeman who was trying to detain them.
British troops, who are responsible for security in the area, later that day stormed a Basra jail looking for their two men. A further raid was then mounted on a nearby house to free them after the soldiers had been spirited away from the jail by Shi'ite militiamen.
On Thursday, local authorities in the town announced they were halting cooperation with British forces because of the British action. And yesterday, an Iraqi judge issued arrest warrants for the British soldiers.
Accounts from Basra suggest that the abduction of the men from a police station was the work of the Mahdi's Army street militia, loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr. The militia is believed to have been forging closer links with Iran since its failed uprising against the coalition last year.

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British officials believe that the Iranians recently have intensified their efforts to disrupt coalition efforts to establish a functioning democracy.
Many of Iran's hard-line clerics are concerned about the establishment of a secular Shi'ite government in Baghdad. Even though Islamists won the recent general election in Iran, they fear a challenge from the vocal, and influential, lobby that wants to loosen the ayatollahs' grip on power in Tehran.
The mullahs fear that if, as expected, Shi'ites take control of Iraq after the referendum, the secular government will be a challenge to the hard-line theocracy that holds sway in Iran.

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