It now appears that Petraeus has had a plan of a massive US offensive in Basra for some time, and Nouri al-Maliki, fearful of the political blow-back from US operations there, launched his own campaign last month.

The last three paras reveal that the politics here are Byzantine:

Bush administration suspicions of al-Maliki’s intentions could not have been eased by the fact that a delegation of pro-government parties traveled to Iran to ask the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to negotiate a ceasefire with the Mahdi Army. That ploy move, which did result in a tenuous ceasefire, raised the possibility that al-Maliki intended from the beginning that the outcome of the Basra operation would be a new agreement that would prevent the deployment of U.S. and British troops to fight the Mahdi Army during the summer.

Bush administration officials have been asserting that the most important thing about the Basra operation is that al-Maliki is now convinced that Iran is really an enemy rather than a friend. But al-Maliki’s Apr. 7 interview with CNN’s Robertson made it clear that he has not budged from his position that his government’s interests lie in an accord between Iran and the United States — not in taking sides against Iran.

“We will always reject the idea of any side using Iraq as a launching pad for its attack on others,” said al-Maliki. “We reject Iran using Iraq to attack the U.S., and at the same time we reject the idea of the U.S. using Iraq to attack Iran…”

Why the hell are we in there again?