Russert devoted much of the program to Iraq. Santorum responded by repeatedly turning to criticism of Iran, saying Iraq’s Shiite-led neighbor is “at the heart of this war. . . . How do we cure Iraq? Focus on Iran.” In a rare swipe at the White House, he said, “a big problem I have with this administration is it hasn’t been tough enough on Iran.”  ~The Washington Post

You tell ’em, Rick!  Nobody can accuse you of being a bootlicking presidential loyalist now! 

But, actually the Shi’ite militias in Iraq are rather at the heart of this war, and only one of them receives direct support from Iran.  That would be the militia attached to SCIRI, one of the main Shi’ite parties.  The other militia is, of course, Sadr’s, and Sadr also has representatives in the parliament who provide support for Maliki’s position.  Sadr, to the everlasting discomfort of anti-Iranian propagandists, is an Iraqi nationalist who at least publicly claims to oppose Iranian inteference in Iraqi affairs.  It is Sadr’s militia that is wreaking havoc all over Baghdad, and Sadr’s militia that was fighting Iraqi Army units in Diwaniyah. 

So it would seem to me that Iraqi problems created by Iraqi militants are at the heart of the Iraq war.  Iran may indeed be fishing in troubled waters, and has long had a relationship with SCIRI (back when in the halcyon days of the 1980s, we regarded SCIRI as a terrorist group because it was hostile to Hussein–it’s fun how things change, no?), but Santorum has to be an ideologue or a naif to think that Iran is the main source of our ills in Iraq. 

Whether or not Iran’s nuclear program is a threat (some say yes, I say no), Iran has relatively little to do with our problems in Iraq.  We should probably be rather more concerned that the Kurds are making moves towards independence (such as replacing the Iraqi national flag with the Kurdish flag), which will involve Turkey and Iran in big ways that nobody really wants.  Santorum’s obsessiveness with Iran is not surprising–he had one of the more hysterical anti-Iranian pieces in NRO’s recent symposium on Khatami’s visa.  Of course, if we took Santorum’s lead and adopted a hell-bent adversarial policy towards Iran, we could very soon see Iran stir up some real trouble for us.  It is unfortunate that Casey seems to be a pandering nebbish, er, centrist Democrat, and could not find a coherent policy position to save his life, because Santorum seems to have decided to belong to the most delusional, aggressive and militaristic wing of the GOP in foreign policy.  Casey is admittedly a half-a-loaf pro-lifer, but he is at least pro-life, so I will have no real regrets for having cheered on Santorum’s defeat (if he does indeed lose).