It's not al-Qaeda, it's not Iran

It's the Iraqi Shiites protecting themselves from us:

In his press briefing on August 5, Odierno, the second-ranking US commander in Iraq, blamed the rise in the proportion of US casualties attributable to Shi'ite militias to Iran "surging their support to these groups based on the September report" - a reference to the much-anticipated report by General David Petraeus on the United States' own "surge" strategy.

Odierno claimed intelligence reports supported his contention of an Iranian effort to influence public perceptions of the "surge" strategy. "They're sending more money in, they're training more individuals and they're sending more weapons in."

He repeated the charge in an interview with Michael R Gordon of the New York Times published on its front page on August 8 under the headline "US says Iran-supplied bomb is killing more troops in Iraq". In that interview, he declared of Iran, "I think they want to influence the decision potentially coming up in September."

What Odierno framed in terms of an Iranian policy, however, can be explained much more simply by the fact that the US military mounted more operations on Muqtada's Mahdi Army during the spring and summer.

The US command has not provided any statistics on the targets of its operations in recent months, but news reports on those operations reveal a pattern of rising US attacks on Mahdi Army personnel since March.

Between April 26 and June 30, the US command in Baghdad announced dozens of military operations in Baghdad - the vast majority in Sadr City - solely for the purpose of capturing or killing Shi'ites belonging to what were called "secret cells", a term used to describe Mahdi Army units alleged to be supported by Iran.

In July, the Mahdi Army resisted these raids in many cases. On July 9, for example, US troops cordoned off an area in Sadr City and began searching for members of what the US command called a "criminal militia" accused of planting roadside bombs. According to the official military press release, the US troops were "engaged by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire from numerous locations".

In short, the rise in deaths of US troops in Baghdad last month reflected the increased pace of US operations against the Mahdi Army and the Mahdi Army's military response.

Odierno conceded as much in the same press conference: "Because of the effect we've had on al-Qaeda in Iraq and the success against them and the Sunni insurgency," he said, "we are focusing very much more on the special groups of the Jaish al-Mahdi [Mahdi Army] here in Baghdad."

The major briefing by the US command on alleged Iranian support for Iraqi Shi'ite militias in recent weeks appears to contradict Odierno's claim that intelligence showed increased Iranian assistance to those militias. Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner told reporters on August 2 - after a "surge" in Iranian assistance had allegedly taken place - that the rate of training of militia groups in Iran had remained stable for a long time.

The transcript of the briefing also shows that Bergner did not claim any recent increase in financial assistance to the Mahdi Army.

How many Americans still think Iraq had anything to do with 9/11? How many of them think all Iraqis and Iranians have goats and camels and live in the desert? How many of them are unaware Iraq had a thriving middle class? That Iran has a highly educated population? How many Americans think all Muslims are of the same religion? How many of them think that attacking Iran is a good idea?

How many Americans can point to Iraq and Iran on the map?