Iran winning in Iraq?

In the aftermath of World War II, Americans looked across the world and saw a bitter irony. After we fought a necessary — indeed, unavoidable — war to crush the evil and expansionist regimes in Tokyo and Berlin, a new evil and expansionist regime began filling the vacuum created by their destruction.

The Soviet octopus spread its tentacles, and its grip was not broken for four decades.

A similar — perhaps even bitterer — irony now threatens to unfold in the Middle East.

Based on erroneous intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaeda, the United States invaded Iraq to disarm and depose an evil and brutal, if secular, dictator. Our military scored a quick victory over Saddam. We then began a grand experiment in democracy-building in Baghdad, the first movement in President Bush’s messianic strategy for “ending tyranny in our world.”

What is the status of this experiment? In an op-ed in The Washington Post this week, Sen. Richard Lugar, ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, pointed to what he called a “much broader Middle East realignment that began with our invasion of Iraq and that may not end for years.”

It is not the pro-freedom movement President Bush sought. “At the center of the realignment is Iran,” said Mr. Lugar, “which is perceived to have emerged from our Iraq intervention as the big winner.”

What is Iran’s strategy in Iraq? “The Iranian government sees an unprecedented opportunity to bring Iraq into its sphere of influence and prevent it from re-emerging as a threat to Iranian interests,” the Defense Department said in its November report, “Measuring Security and Stability in Iraq.”

“Iran seeks to ensure that the Coalition bears political, economic and human casualty costs to deter future U.S. regional intervention. To achieve these objectives, Iran continues to pursue a dual-track strategy of supporting Shia unity and a stable government in Iraq — either a functioning, unified Shia-dominated government or a federated one — on one hand, while facilitating militia activities in Iraq on the other.”

Iran, in fact, is allied with Iraqi Shi’ites who are part of the Iraqi government.

The Iranian-backed militias in Iran are affiliated with components of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Islamist-dominated Shi’ite coalition to which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Call to Islam Party belongs. This coalition was put together by Iraq’s preeminent Shi’ite clergyman, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who is Iranian by birth.

One of the Iranian-backed militias is the Badr Brigade. It is the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a party formed in exile in Iran in 1982 at the direction of Ayatollah Khomeini. Abdul Aziz al Hakim, original leader of the Badr Brigade, now leads SCIRI itself, which is the largest single party in Iraq’s parliament.

The other major Iranian-backed militia is warlord Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Mr. Al-Maliki became prime minister last year when Sheik al-Sadr threw his support behind Mr. al-Maliki’s Call to Islam over Sheik al-Hakim’s SCIRI in an intramural political battle within the United Iraqi Alliance.

In December, the first step in the Bush administration’s plan for dealing with the Mahdi Army was to help Mr. al-Maliki build a new parliamentary base by bringing Sheik al-Hakim into his fold, making Sheik al-Sadr’s support unnecessary. Sheik al-Hakim visited the White House to discuss it, then on Dec. 10 gave an interview to Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

Mr. Blitzer read Sheik al-Hakim a statement by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: “Israel must be wiped off the map of the world, and God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionists.”

“Do you agree with him or disagree with him?” asked Mr. Blitzer. The sheik dodged the question.

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