GARETH PORTER
Porter, author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, just wrote the piece “Petraeus Testimony to Defend False ‘Proxy War’ Line,” which states: “Based on preliminary indications of his spin on the surprisingly effective armed resistance to the joint U.S.-Iraqi ‘Operation Knights Assault’ in Basra, Petraeus will testify that it was caused by Iran through a group of rogue militiamen who had split off from Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and came under Iranian control. …

“Iran has no reason to look for a small splinter group to advance its interests when it already enjoys a relationship of strategic cooperation with the [Iraqi] government itself. …

“The interest of [the] Bush administration in keeping the ‘proxy war’ line alive has nothing to do with Iraqi realities. … As a strategic weapon for justifying the administration’s policies toward both Iraq and Iran, the theme of Iranian interference through ‘Special Groups’ is bound to be a central thread in the testimony [by Petreaus].”
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