General Petraeus said today that while al Qaeda continues to pose the most immediate threat to security in Iraq, Coalition strikes against the group have eroded its capacity to spur sectarian violence. The upshot: Iran increasingly looks to be the most serious long-term threat to peace and stability in Iraq.
"Al Qaeda remains the wolf closest to the sled, if you will," he said. "The enemy that is always bent on reigniting sectarian violence, causing the most horrific casualties, damaging the infrastructure in the most difficult way. So you cannot lose focus on al Qaeda..."
"Militias could potentially be the long-term problem for Iraq, if you assume that we can continue to make progress against al Qaeda..."
And again, Petraeus described the evidence of Iranian support for those militias:
But, Petraeus added, there was "no question" that Iranian arms were ending up in the hands of the Iraqi militias and there was "no debate" that six Iranians detained by the U.S. military in northern Iraq are Iranian Quds force members -- the Iranian unit the United States accuses of training and arming insurgents.
"There's no question, absolutely no question that Iran is providing advanced RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades], RPG 29s," Petraeus said.
"It has provided some shoulder-fired, Stinger-like air-defense missiles. It has provided the explosively formed projectiles and it has provided 244 mm rockets, in addition to mortars, mortar rounds and other small-arms ammunition."
Petraeus also said the Iranians "are implicated in the assassination of some governors in the southern provinces."
He said one indication the Quds force controls Iranian policy is that Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazzem Qomi, is a member of the group.
There are still a few people out there who deny Iranian involvement in the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, or minimize Iranian actions there as mere "interference," but as Hillary might say, such statements require the willing suspension of disbelief. Go read the whole whole story from CNN.
