Bush Fears Ahmadinejad

That's the only conclusion I can reach after analyzing the following series of events. See if you don't end up where I did.

First, witness the success the U.S.-led Coalition in Iraq has had slicing and dicing Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army:

The violent Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army is breaking into splinter groups, with up to 3,000 gunmen now financed directly by Iran and no longer loyal to the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, adding a potentially even more deadly element to Iraq's violent mix.

Two senior militia commanders told The Associated Press that hundreds of these fighters have crossed into Iran for training by the elite Quds force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard thought to have trained Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Afghanistan.

The breakup is an ominous development at a time when U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to defeat religious-based militias and secure Iraq under government control. While al-Sadr's forces have battled the coalition repeatedly, including pitched battles in 2004, they've mostly stayed in the background during the latest offensive.

Indeed - they'll live longer that way, assuming their seventy-two virgins will stick it out for that long.

The key thing that interests me is how the Mahdis have essentially cut out the middle man - Sadr (who himself fled to Iran an abject failure, which is why the Quds are stepping more directly into the fray) - and removed any doubt about who they're really working for. It's the clearest indicator yet that we are at war with Iran and that we are hamstringing ourselves by remaining in a defensive crouch in Iraq instead of fully engaging the mullahs and sending them the way of Saddam Hussein.

So guess what our side is doing: - trying to reach out to Sadr:

The U.S. military Wednesday released a senior member of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's movement at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

The decision, officials said, was made with the hope of easing tensions between Sadr's Al Mahdi militia and U.S.-led forces in Iraq. Sheik Ahmed Shibani, who had been in prison for 2 1/2 years, was handed over to the office of the Shiite prime minister.

"In consultation with the prime minister and following his request, coalition leaders determined that Sheik Shibani, who was detained since 2004, could play a potentially important role in helping to moderate extremism and foster reconciliation in Iraq," U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said in a statement.

Well does Cap'n Ed ask what the point of Sheik Shibani's release is on its face. When has Sadr or his gang ever helped to "moderate extremism and foster reconciliation" before? Wasn't the Mahdi Army one of the targets of "The Surge"? If they've been splintered and driven from the country, why turn around and given them an engraved invitation to return?

It does appear perplexing, until you factor in the extreme reluctance of the Bush Administration to give off any possible hint, the slightest suggestion, that Iran is engaged in barely disguised hostilities with us. To acknowlege that would require a lot more aggressive stance against the mullahgarchy across the policy board, and that is something the Bushies, for whatever reason, are utterly loathe to do. So what better way out of the Mahdi Army revealing itself to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards than to release a Sadr lieutenant, make him the face of Sadr's faction, and re-muddy the waters around the true source of their resources and marching orders?

If you're Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, you have to be marveling at how snivelingly frightened the big, bad Great Satan has become of you. That even the warrior president George Bush trembles at your presence. It's quite unsurprising, then, that such perceptions lead to such actions as this:

Iran captured fifteen British Royal Navy personnel during a “routine boarding operation” in Iraqi waters on Friday, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said.

Iran’s ambassador in London has been summoned and Britain is demanding the immediate safe release of the sailors.

“At approximately 1030 Iraqi time this morning, fifteen British naval personnel, engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters ... were seized by Iranian naval vessels,” the ministry said in a statement.

“We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and on the instructions of the Foreign Secretary, the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office. The British government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment.”

Is this not an act of war? Invading Iraqi territorial waters and seizing British sailors? There are any number of different purposes the Iranians may have had for this attack - holding the Brits hostage to coerce their government or ours; turning the British, our only ally of any significance left in the Coalition, against us and forcing their withdrawal; or just to show that they can capture Coaliton troops with impunity, and thus how weak and impotent we are in the face of "Persian Power".

Persian nuclear power, that is. With Tehran already in possession of several crude warheads and working on producing a full arsenal, and with our intelligence resources and capabilties inside Iran just as awful as they were inside Iraq four years ago, the Bush White House clearly is determined to avoid any confrontation with the mullahs, no matter what the provocation, for fear that we have overestimated Iranian nuclear capabilities - or that we've underestimated them, and will unleash a catastrophe.

The problem is, that catastrophe is coming either way. We can either incur it on our terms or the mullahs'.

It's always seemed to me that the former is preferable. History certainly teaches that. But history also teaches that pols never learn from history.

George W. Bush did, for a while. But he's had the lesson browbeaten out of him, to the point that no future president will pick it back up.

Well, no American president, anyway. Which is why the lesson will be a lot costlier the next time around.