Writing for Foxnews, Alireza Jafarzadeh has an article entitled Shiite Awakening in Iraq Targets Tehran.  His commentary is important and bears reiterating here before we analyze it.

Over the weekend — while the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was in Tehran making headlines with yet another incentive package offered by China, France, Germany, Britain and Russia and the United States — three million Shiites in Iraq were making another, more important “Iran headline.” United Press International reported from Baghdad that “More than 3 million Iraqi Shiites signed a petition sponsored by the leaders of the People’s Mujahedin [MEK] of Iran opposing Iranian influence in Iraqi affairs.”

“Expulsion of all members and agents of the Iranian regime’s IRGC, Intelligence, and the terrorist Qods Force from all governmental or non-governmental institutions of Iraq, especially the security systems and the police,” the declaration demanded.

UPI added that “The declaration, which also called for the lifting of a measure curtailing the activity of the MEK in Ashraf City in eastern Iraq, was announced at the fourth conference for the Solidarity Congress of the Iraqi People” held in Ashraf City, Iraq. The Congress was attended by “Several Iraqi politicians from the Sunni Islamic Party of Iraq of Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, the Islamic Unity Party and several other blocs, including the Iraqi Accordance Front,” according to UPI.

The development has wide-ranging implications for Iraq and for the volatile debate over Iran policy in Washington and other western capitals.

For a long time, a myth essentially manufactured in Tehran has been making the rounds in policy circles on both sides of the Atlantic, according to which the situation in Iraq must be viewed in the framework of Sunni vs. Shiite. More specifically, it is argued that Iran has the ultimate sway over Iraq’s Shiites, and any firm countermeasure against Tehran’s meddling risks prodding the ayatollahs into unleashing the Shiite population and plunging Iraq into bloody civil war for years to come. In support of this misguided argument, some pundits are saying if you think things are bad now, just imagine the mayhem if Iran brings its army of Iraqi Shiites to the streets.

This is a false prophecy. It has nevertheless hampered the formulation of an effective policy or plan to neutralize Tehran’s inroads in Iraq. That failure has dire consequences as it will enable Tehran to make further inroads in Iraq and consolidate its domination of that country.

The reality is that Tehran’s sway over Iraqi Shiites is limited to its proxies, who have infiltrated all spheres of the Iraqi government and Southern provinces. They are augmented by an army of well paid mercenaries, operating within and without the government in various terrorist groups which are financed, trained, and armed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Qods Force. In the streets of the Shiite cities and neighborhoods, ordinary Iraqis describe the ayatollahs’ meddling as the “poison from the East.”

The scope of the Shiite opposition goes far beyond the 3 million signatories, because unlike petitions signed on the corners of K Street in Washington, these Iraqis and their families could very well pay with their blood for such a public and emphatic rebuke of Tehran.

Last April in an opinion piece in the Boston Globe, Dr. Saleh al-Mutlaq, the head of the influential Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, and a member of the Iraqi Parliament, charged the al-Maliki government “was caving in to pressure from Iran to make life difficult for the MEK.” He wrote that “the MEK people enjoy popular support inside Iraq, particularly in Diyala province, where they have worked to promote reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite communities.”

The landmark declaration signed by three million Shiites also has a clear message for Washington: Iraqi Shiites reject the false assertions of those who have been speaking on their behalf. They are telling Washington to stand firm and confront Iran’s meddling, without fear of a Shiite backlash.

This is an important article and warrants some serious reflection.  The Captain’s Journal agrees with Jafarzadeh, and has called for the dismantling of Iranian forces and diminution of Iranian influence in Iraq so many times that it is not possible to find and link all of our articles.  We have no fear of a Shi’ite backlash, whether it happens or not.  As students of counterinsurgency are quick to point out, winning and losing are concepts that must be replaced with a spectrum acceptable outcomes.

Let’s be clear.  An empowered Iran is not an acceptable outcome of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  This “awakening” of sorts is a good step.  But more important than the seeds of a Shi’ite awakening is the most significant name missing from the list of proponents.

The name is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one time military leader of Badr and now head of Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.  The Captain’s Journal mistrusts him as much as we do Sadr, and maybe more so, since Sadr at least makes his sentiments and intentions known.  Hakim has managed to play the political game well enough to be befriended by the administration, both in the U.S. and Iraq.

But he is no friend of a strong, sovereign Iraq.  Rather, he is in the hip pocket of the Iranians.  And there is a huge difference between the Sunni awakening and the Shi’ite awakening to which Jafarzadeh refers, and he alludes to this difference in his very article.

The reality is that Tehran’s sway over Iraqi Shiites is limited to its proxies, who have infiltrated all spheres of the Iraqi government and Southern provinces. They are augmented by an army of well paid mercenaries, operating within and without the government in various terrorist groups which are financed, trained, and armed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Qods Force. In the streets of the Shiite cities and neighborhoods, ordinary Iraqis describe the ayatollahs’ meddling as the “poison from the East.”

Poison it is.  And Hakim knows just who the IRG and Quds are.  He knows names, persons, locations, caches, routes of supply, training camps, and all manner of things that makes Iran powerful in Iraq.  The Sunni awakening was a true awakening, where common people rose up against a brutal enemy - al Qaeda.  Neither side was embedded within the government like the tick that is Hakim and the SIIC.

Only time will tell whether the common people rising up against the continuing Iranian influence (including the SIIC) will be enough.  Unlike al Qaeda, the SIIC is embedded within the Iraqi system.  Hakim himself could rise up against Iran and repudiate their influence, demanding his followers do the same.  Will he?  It’s Doubtful.  He belongs to Iran, and there has been absolutely no stomach with Maliki or the U.S. advisers to pressure Hakim regarding his alignment with Iran.