Hakim, Sadr & Iran

"SIIC, as a party have tried to distance themselves from Iran since their arrival to Iraq, bearing in mind who they are its not an easy task. The minute Mohammed Baqir Al-Hakim set foot on Iraqi soil he ordered every Iranian with him to turn back and go home. I met the SCIRI leader in Iran in 2002 (tagged along with my father who was worried about his militia). My father raised the issue of weapons and advised him against taking them into Iraq, not least because the Americans would see an armed force coming from Iran as a threat. Fortunately, Mohammed Baqir assured my father no one would be taking their weapons to Iraq, unfortunately, there was an abundance of weapons already in Iraq and the Badr militia simply rearmed there but the point being Al-Hakim realised he could survive without the Iranians. A lot of questions were raised after his death about how someone could have come that close to his car with explosives. A few years later his younger brother dropped the "Revolution in Iraq" and added "Iraqi" to their name, a move that couldn't have gone down too well in Iran, which is ruled with an iron fist by revolutionary fanatics. What I was referring to in the previous post was the 'official' line ("positive") SIIC take on Iran and not what they say in private."
Eye Raki