Ahmadinejad wants us out of Iraq

This should really come as no surprise to anyone. Of course he wants us out. He's wanted that from the start. But we're not going anywhere, and his denials of complicity for much of the violence over the past couple of years doesn't pass the smell test:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday dismissed U.S. accusations that his country is training extremists and demanded that the Americans withdraw from Iraq.

Speaking in a nearly hour-long news conference at the end of an unprecedented visit to Iraq, Ahmadinejad said the U.S. allegations — that Iran is training Shiite militants who target American troops and Muslim rivals — don't matter to the Iranians.

"Of course American officials make such remarks and such statements, and we do not care ... because they make statements on the basis of erroneous information," said the hard-line Iranian leader, who smiled through much of the session. "We cannot count on what they say."

He said the foreign presence in Iraq was an "insult to the regional nations and a humiliation."

We have detained, captured, and killed Iranian militants in Iraq, and the Iraqi Security Forces, along with British and American forces have tried to stem the flow of weapons, IEDs, and EFPs into Iraq for the past two years. We got a foothold on that with the presence of the Surge troops in Iraq last year, and they seem to be working just as well today.

As for erroneous information, our military investigators aren't wrong when they show the press photos of what's been found there, or the fact that we have caught members of Iran's Quds forces amongst the militias and the foreign terrorists there. Add to the fact that a few of the militants we have caught have told military personnel who trained them, and the extent of that training.

Ahmadinejad wants us out so he can strike a deal with the fledgling Iraqi government. Lord knows what that deal is, but rest assured it won't be good for them, or for us.

Publius II