IN THE FACE of American charges that Iran has been training and arming Shi'ite militias in Iraq, the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has been issuing contradictory statements - as it strains to maintain a precarious balance between the United States and Iran, its two principal backers. President Bush made this triangular relationship possible, but he can't seem to acknowledge it or deal head on with its consequences.
Instead of treating Iran's support for Shi'ite factions in Iraq as a black-and-white issue of military meddling, the administration ought to make sure it gets right the politics of the matter. After all, any workable American exit strategy will depend less on a clear-cut military victory than a political compact involving not only Iraq's feuding factions but also the surrounding states.
US officials say they discovered large caches of Iranian weapons recently and that captured Iraqi militiamen have told interrogators they were trained in Iran by the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah. The implication is that Iran is to blame for attacks on American forces and for conflicts between Shi'ite militias and the Maliki government. But neither the attacks on US forces nor the violent power struggles would end if Iran stopped selling guns, bullets, and explosive devices to Iraqis.
This is not to absolve Tehran of responsibility for stirring the pot in Iraq. By all accounts, the branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in charge of foreign operations, the Qods Force, has been arming and training clients in Iraq ever since Bush toppled Saddam Hussein. For US policymakers, however, the key questions concern Iranian aims in Iraq, and realistic ways to forge a stable political order in Iraq acceptable to both Tehran and Washington.
Iran's intentions in Iraq are hard to read. Different power centers in the Iranian regime may have backed Iraqi factions that are at war with each other. But two Iranian objectives seem constant. One is to have a militia like Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army harass the Americans until they announce a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. The other is to retain enough influence with each of the major Shi'ite groupings so that whoever comes out on top will be favorably inclined toward Tehran.
If Maliki's ministers at first deny, then affirm, US accusations about Iran, it is because they are anxious not to displease either of their two political patrons. President Bush created this situation by opening Iraq to Iranian influence. His successor will have to assemble the shattered shards of Iraq in a new vessel, one that will have to be molded not with force but diplomacy.
