Iran's man in Iraq is losing it

Amir Taheri:

'I HAVE lost hope of liberating Iraq and turning it into an Is lamic society." So said Muqtada al-Sadr in an open letter to his followers published last week.

The young Shiite mullah once claimed he would lead Iraq "back to true Islam," but he has been in Iran for at least the last six months. He had been expected to announce an end to the cease-fire observed by his Mahdi Army since 2007. Instead, he voiced a litany of woes that ended with an implicit pledge not to reactivate his death squads.

Muqtada blamed members of his entourage and unnamed mullahs and Shiite notables for having "undermined the struggle" for "worldly reasons" and for having succumbed to the temptation of wealth and power presented to them by the Iraqi government.

The 32-year-old ex-militia leader ended his letter by announcing that he is withdrawing from public life to pursue clerical studies "in accordance with the will and testament of my late father," Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadeq al-Sadr.

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So we have a paradoxical situation in which the Islamic Republic actually fears that a precipitous US departure from Iraq could enable anti-Iran elements to come to power with the help of Arab Sunni states and Turkey.

Thus, the decision to leash Muqtada is part of a broader Iranian scheme to buy time. In the meantime, Tehran wants the Americans to keep on bleeding but not so profusely that the next president disengages from Iraq.

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Taheri looks at the Iran Iraq picture as a three dimensional chess board with several layers. Whatever the reason for Mooky's withdrawal, it is a good thing for Iraq. He is right that Iran will continue to try to influence events in Iraq, but when we succeed in Iraq, I think that dynamic will flip and a new Iraq will start influencing events in Iran.