Bring em on!

I have spent the last several years trying figure out if the Bush/Cheney administration and the neocons are stupid and delusional, just plain crazy or if there is some bizarre method to their madness. I'm beginning to think it must be all of the above. They are constantly ranting about Iran but they have and continue to do all of Iran's dirty work in Iraq. They toppled Iran's arch enemy, Saddam, they put the most pro-Iranian elements in Iraq in power and they continue to defend those elements with US blood and treasure. The latest example is this:
Iraqi Army Takes Last Basra Areas From Sadr Force
But of course they didn't do it alone.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi soldiers took control of the last bastions of the cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s militia in Basra on Saturday, and Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad strongly endorsed the Iraqi government’s monthlong military operation against the fighters.

By Saturday evening, Basra was calm, but only after air and artillery strikes by American and British forces cleared the way for Iraqi troops to move into the Hayaniya district and other remaining Mahdi Army militia strongholds and begin house-to house searches, Iraqi officials said. Iraqi troops were meeting little resistance, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad.

While the administration talks about about Iran's support for al-Sadr the Iranians are laughing. They like al-Maliki's government just fine since it is supported and controlled by the pro-Iranian ISCI and Da'wa party. The Iraqi security forces are primarily members of the Badr Brigade - a creation of the Iranians.

While that is stupid it is not nearly as stupid as this:
Secretary of State Rice Mocks Muslim Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a Coward

BAGHDAD — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

Now the American and British air strikes may have driven the Mehdi army underground but only to fight another day. The always stupid and incompetent Rice has just poured gasoline on embers which will flare up even sooner resulting in the deaths of both Iraqis and Americans. This administration is criminally stupid and incompetent.