The United States is arming these central Iranian tribesmen who hate Persians.
When the war breaks out the Persians will find out that not all Iranians are loyal to the Persian mullahs.
Iran will be broken up after the war into smaller ethnic fragments.
Its called" Divide and Conquer". Old as the hills.
Probably pre-dates the Roman Empire.
The Revolutionary Guard has replaced the clerical establishment in Iran as the most influential extra-governmental institution in Iran. A few years ago if you wanted to do business in Iran you worked with a cleric's family. Now you must work with an IRG family member. It seldom bodes well when governments are militarized.
That's all that is holding Iran together at present. Iran is a hard shell full of rot within. All that we need to do is crack that shell in one place, just one, and the pus will choke the buzzards. Iran is RIPE.
The goal of the Iranian-sponsored Tet was far more immediate, designed to exploit the gap left by the British withdrawal before it could be filled by newly-raised Iraqi battalions. In this space they would run rampage. Then, they hoped the Najaf clergy would broker a ceasefire to freeze the gains which Sadr's militia hoped to gain in the first hours of surprise. Unfortunately for Sadr, Maliki struck first. And as in boxing, no punch hurts so much as the haymaker that beats the one you were in the process of throwing. Sadr got creamed and Sistani abandoned him.
Tehran's decision to make the gamble was based on three assumptions:
* Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wouldn't have the courage to defend Basra at the risk of burning his bridges with the Islamic Republic in Iran.
* The international force would be in no position to intervene in the Basra battle. The British, who controlled Basra until last December, had no desire to return, especially if this meant getting involved in fighting. The Americans, meanwhile, never had enough troops to finish off al-Qaeda-in-Iraq, let alone fight Iran and its local militias on a new front.
* The Shiite clerical leadership in Najaf would oppose intervention by the new Iraqi security forces in a battle that could lead to heavy Shiite casualties.
Thus the refusal of Sistani to intervene -- worse still his statement that "the law is the only authority in the country" -- meant the end of JAM's last hope. Sadr can no longer hope for salvation by listening for the bell. Any bells that he hears are ringing in his head.
But Sadr is really small potatoes though the many newspapermen perversely think of him as the uncrowned king of Iraq, and the "winner" of the recent confrontation.
What recent events really signify is that Maliki, not Iran's Khamenei, is the master of southern Iraq, or at least that the control of southern Iraq is now in dispute between the two.And maliki has the OiL to back his words and OiL is the lingua franca of Basra.
Ergo: Maliki wins in Basra. Follow the money. The Golden Rule is he who has the gold makes the rules.
This means that there are now two political power centers in the Shi'ite arc. One center is based in Teheran and the other is based in Iraq.
Its the old Najaf against Qom trick all over again. Iraq and Iran know all about it. Its the shiite soul.
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