A NEW AXIS?

Understandably, you might have missed this:

Iraq and Iran to sign agreement

Former foes Iran and Iraq said on Thursday they would sign a military cooperation agreement which will include Iranian help in training Iraq's armed forces, despite likely US opposition....
   
"It's a new chapter in our relations with Iraq. We will start wide defence cooperations," Iranian Defence Minister Admiral Ali Shamkhani told a joint news conference with visiting Iraqi counterpart Saadoun al-Dulaimi.
   
"We're going to form some committees which will be involved in mine clearance, identifying those missing from the war and also...to help train, rebuild and modernise the Iraqi army."
   
Iran last year offered to train Iraqi border guards, but Iraq frostily declined the offer. Relations between the two countries have steadily improved since Iraq's Shi'ite majority sealed its political dominace in elections earlier this year....

Asked about possible U.S. opposition to Iran-Iraq military cooperation, [Iranian Defence Minister Admiral Ali] Shamkhani said: "No one can prevent us from reaching an agreement." 
   
Iraq's [Saadoun] al-Dulaimi echoed Shamkhani's comments.
   
"Nobody can dictate to Iraq its relations with other countries," he said....

Read that back to back with this New York Times story:

...The once libertine oil port of Basra, 350 miles south of the capital and far from the insurgency raging in much of Iraq, is steadily being transformed into a mini-theocracy under Shiite rule. There is perhaps no better indication of the possible flash points in a Shiite-dominated Iraq, because the political parties that hold sway here also wield significant influence in the central government in Baghdad and are backed by the country's top clerics....

Small parties with names like God's Vengeance and Master of Martyrs have emerged. They work under the umbrella of more established Shiite groups, but many Iraqis suspect them of being agents of the Iranian government. One of the leading parties was formed in Iran by an Iraqi cleric living in exile during the reign of Saddam Hussein.

The growing ties with Iran are evident. Posters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution, are plastered along streets and even at the provincial government center....

Yikes.

Well, W, you really have set a big fat transformation in motion in the region. Thanks a lot.