After seven years of blowing Iraqis to smithereens, you’d think that the pom poms for JDAMs crowd would at least have the courtesy to learn a thing or two about those that lack sufficient appreciation for our white man’s burden. 

Actually, you wouldn’t think that at all because it’s entirely irrelevant to those that derive vicarious machismo from carpet bombing any ol wogs.  Speaking of which, Gateway Pundit displays the plumage of his ignorance like a strutting gamecock:

Figure this one out.  Muntadhar al-Zeidi reportedly hates Iran but speaks glowingly of Muqtada Al-Sadr, the anti-American Iranian Regime lackey who disappeared to Iran months ago.

Not that hard to figure out really.  The Sadrists have traditionally had contentious relations with their Persian co-religionists, and it is not uncommon to hear nasty anti-Persian rhetoric from Sadrist spokesmen and rank and file.  The Sadrists, after all, tend to come from the lower end of the economic scale and embrace a fervent brand of nationalism/xenophobia common in such social strata (we have our analogue of course). 

Oddly enough, they don’t appreciate foreign meddling in Iraq – be it of a Persian or American variety.  Must be an Arab thing.

Sure, Sadr retreated to Iran recently but there were some very good reasons for that: First and foremost, the US military was trying to kill or capture him, which tended to make Iran a very attractive destination.  Pressure from the US is actually pushing Sadr closer to Iran, but it’s important to recognize the causality and the incentives being established. 

Second, that’s where Qom is, and Qom is where Sadr needs to be to continue his religious studies.  Even Catholics from nations/ethnic groups with some animosity toward Italy seek out the Vatican for religious studies.

This is all part of the game by which the neocons and their fellow travelers pretend (or are fooled into thinking as is the case with Gateway Putz) that Sadr is some “lackey” of Iran despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 

Some history: The Sadrists, if you recall, stayed in Iraq during Saddam’s persecution of Shiite groups during the 1980s and 1990s.  This earned them massive street cred and the mantle of Iraqi nationalism.  They kept it realz yo.

Maliki’s Dawa, on the other hand, fled to Iran where the Iranian regime carved out a faction of Dawa and called it SCIRI (later ISCI).  ISCI actually fought with the Iranians against Iraq during that decade long war.  Talk about lackeys. 

But because Sadr opposes the US presence in Iraq (like a nationalist would), the neocons bundled him up with the Iranislamofascists so as to keep it simple for the stupids, while ignoring the provenance of ISCI and Dawa (our friends and White House guests!).

I suppose Gateway Pundit can take some comfort in the fact that Condi Rice doesn’t have a clue either.  But then, theirs is a movement that ridicules actual knowledge of foreign places, people and, um, correct pronunciations. 

So Gateway Pundit’s one-eyed analysis is mistaken for vision and insight.