Juan Cole had an interesting post on Informed Comment yesterday.

Basically the problem revolves around a decision by Brig. Gen. Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, the head of the Iraqi secret police, to charged 27 employees in the Iranian embassy in Baghdad with espionage and sabotage. Now the important little detail here is that he also claims to have seized from “safehouses” Persian documents that show that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution (SCIR) in Iraq and its militia, the Badr Corps, served as Iranian agents in helping with the assassinations.

Now there is no way of knowing whether these accusations are well-founded or not (Juan Cole describes them as ‘fantastic’). I am not able to judge.

The important point, ‘guilty or innocent’ though, is that the SCIR is closely associated with Iraq’s ‘moderate’ shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. That is that the whole situation might well end up exacerbating Sunni-Shiite relations. This is just one more example of just how complicated all this is going to be.

The other detail, which shouldn’t be missed, is that Shahwani seems to be close to the current US administration. This could all take on a new significance following the US elections, as any clear demonstration of Iran involvement in internal violence in Iraq would open up a whole additional set of issues.