Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the "Supreme Leader" of Iran, hinted today about restoring ties to the United States. Here is the direct quote:

Not having relations with America is one of our main policies but we have never said this relationship should be cut forever. Establishing this relationship now (would be) harmful for us and naturally we shouldn't follow it. Certainly, the day when having relations with America is useful for the nation I will be the first one to approve this relationship.

This statement comes after (1) the U.S. intelligence estimate saying that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program four years ago; (2) comments from David Satterfield, the top State Department official for Iraq, that Iran has apparently halted its provocations in Iraq; and (3) Ambassador Ryan Crocker's announcement in Iraq that he is re-starting talks with Iran in Baghdad.

Here is Satterfield's quote, from an interview in the Post on Dec. 23:

We have seen such a consistent and sustained diminution in certain kinds of violence by certain kinds of folks that we can't explain it solely [by internal factors in Iraq]. If you add those all together, your calculus doesn't come out unless you also add in that the Iranians at a command level must have said or done something, as well. ... We are confident that decisions involving the strategy pursued by the IRGC are made at the most senior levels of the Iranian government.

Meanwhile, in the Washington Times, a top U.S. commander in Iraq also said Iran is behaving itself. Col. Steven Boylan said:

We are ready to confirm the excellence of the senior Iranian leadership in their pledge to stop the funding, training, equipment and resourcing of the militia special groups. We have seen a downward trend in the signature-type attacks using weapons provided by Iran.

Boylan added, however, that the United States has "recently captured individuals who have been in Iran, training, as short as 45-60 days ago." [UPDATE: Boylan's quote was called "inaccurate" by Boylan himself, according to Fox News. "We do not know if there has been a decrease in the supply of Iranian weapons," he said. "It is not clear if Iran's leaders stopped supplying weapons or training to extremist elements in Iraq. We hope that they have, but until we can confirm it, we are in the wait and see mode."]

Interestingly, on Jan. 1 Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the SIIC leader who is close to Iran, met with Ambassador Crocker and "discussed with him the positive development of the neighboring countries' positions in supporting the political process as well as means to foster bilateral ties," according to a SIIC release. When Hakim was in Washington last month, he stressed that he wanted to mediate U.S-Iranian ties.

From an otherwise uneventful news conference yesterday at the Pentagon, which I attended, here's what the Iraqi defense minister, Abd al-Qadir al-Mufriji, had to say about Iran's role in Iraq:

Iran is a neighbor of Iraq and has a thousand kilometer border with Iraq and we must recognize this and we must have good relationships with Iran one way or the other. And we try to develop this relationship. Iran is very worried for something that could happen to it. So it tried to transfer the battle to Iraq through sending weapons to Iraq such as missiles – 240 millimeter – and missiles of 107, and mortars – 81 millimeter. And the danger also here lies in the explosive bombs, especially in the last months. There was a decline, a great decline because of the discussions with Iran. There is a great improvement with regard to these weapons that were coming to various organizations. At the same time, especially the Sadrist movement in Iraq, announced freezing all operations, military operations, against the Iraqi Forces or Multinational Forces. This contributed in reducing the Iranian intervention in Iraq. There is a lot of work to reduce this and the same is happening with Syria.

I was particularly struck by by his statement that "Iran is very worried for something that could happen to it." Clearly, the defense minister is saying that Iran "tried to transfer the battle" as a defensive measure, since it feared an American attack after 2003. Now, echoing recent U.S. statements about improvied Iranian behavior in Iraq, he's saying that things are much better.

The Los Angeles Times carries a feature on the Sahwa ("Awakening") movement of Sunni fighters. The reporter, Peter Spiegel, notes that U.S. officials are making a big push for the Iraqi government -- that would be the Shia-dominated government -- to open the door to Sunni participation, including the Sahwa fighters. It quotes an aide to outgoing General Ray Odierno thusly:

"If it doesn't embrace it, you could have the different Sunni Awakenings coming together as a Sunni army that tries to overthrow the government, pushing the country into civil war," the aide said. "It's possible."

Adds the piece:

Odierno has had a series of lengthy and intense meetings with Iraqi officials to sell them on the idea and said last month that the two sides have agreed to a series of "very strict" requirements to temper Iraqi concerns.

Among them are restrictions on the citizens groups operating outside the control of the U.S. military or Iraqi government and a limitation on the number of group members who will be moved into the formal security forces.

Iraqi officials have raised concerns that citizens groups have been infiltrated by hard-core insurgents, a possibility U.S. officials have openly acknowledged.

"Are there people trying to infiltrate them? Yes," Odierno said. "But we can sort through that. The majority of them just want to be part of the government of Iraq. Before, there was no avenue for them to become part of the government of Iraq."

Meanwhile, RFE/RL reports that pro-Sunni Iraqi media say that Iran has created death squads to target Sahwa leaders, many of whom have been assassinated recently, especially in the area around Baghdad:

The pro-Ba'athist Sunni website "Quds Press" and the Sunni-led Iraqi Islamic Party's website (the party is a member of the Al-Tawafuq bloc) published reports this week, citing unidentified intelligence sources, that Iran's Qods Force has formed special brigades to assassinate awakening council members. The source said the brigades are comprised of rogue Al-Mahdi Army militiamen.

It doesn't help that PM Maliki is claiming that Sahwa has been infiltrated by evildoers:

"We, as a government, have intelligence information: the Ba'ath Party has ordered its members to join the awakening councils, and Al-Qaeda has ordered its members to infiltrate the awakening councils," [Maliki] claimed. Al-Maliki said the government's scrutiny of awakening council members "is for their protection from infiltration."

Here's General Ray Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, suggesting that the U.S. is reaching out to Shia elements (meaning, presumably, Muqtada al-Sadr) while dealing with the ongoing threat from Iranian-backed Shia forces:

One of the things that's happened over the last 90 to 100 days, I would say, is we are beginning to really start to work with many Shi'a groups, and they are reaching out to us. We're reaching back to them and we're really starting to see some reconciliation, so I'm encouraged by that. But there has been a split in the Shi'a side. You have most of the Shi'a, who want to reconcile and who want to work with us. But we still have some, who mostly are supported by Iran, who still are trying to conduct attacks against coalition forces, are still trying to keep the government of Iraq in a weakened state by conducting attacks. And we are focused very much on them and we will continue to be focused on them in the future.

Q Have you seen -- if I could follow up. The Iranian- supported networks, there's been some talk about a diminishment of Iranian support, but commanders and U.S. officials have said it's too early to judge whether that was a policy decision by the Iranians. Have you been able to now reach a conclusion about that?

GEN. ODIERNO: Well, what I would say is we know fairly emphatically that they continue to train Iraqi extremists in Iran. We know that they continue to pay some of these extremists. We are not sure if they're still importing weapons into Iraq, but we certainly are still uncovering a lot of Iranian weapons here. What we don't know is if they're already here or they continue to send them in. We are still finding lots of EFPs. We are still discovering mortar systems and rounds that are manufactured clearly in Iran. We are finding explosive materials, C4-like material that we know has been developed in Iran. So the stuff is here.

And so, you know, we still believe that they are in fact providing some support. Whether they've reduced it or not, it's hard to tell. But in my mind there are still many surrogates that have been trained in Iran working here. They are still training some people. And we will continue to try to go after those networks.

Read the whole transcript here.

Odierno also addressed U.S. contacts with Sadr:

We clearly are having conversations with people out of Sadr City. We meet with them just about every two weeks. We meet with local leaders; we meet with some of the sheikhs out of Sadr City.

So, I mean, those are important discussions that we're having. They're the ones also, obviously, who tell us that there is some intimidation that goes on in Sadr City by these special group rogue elements, and they frankly want to be rid of them themselves. And so we're working towards that.

In terms of the cease-fire, you know, my -- what I see is, Muqtada al-Sadr is really trying to -- he is -- in my mind, he is really trying to move to a more peaceful organization. He is -- a more humanitarian organization. I believe he is trying to move forward with more of a religious organization and get away from a militia type-supported organization. But we'll see. I mean, that's kind of what I see today. I don't know what we'll see tomorrow, but that's kind of what we see today. And I think those are important steps. But we'll see how it goes. That could change.

The New York Times' report on Thursday about the pattern of assassinations against members of the Sunni Awakening movement blamed some of the killings on Al Qaeda, of course. But it also laid a big part of the blame on an organized campaign by death squads controlled by the Badr Corps of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (formerly SCIRI) and the Mahdi Army's rogue elements, both tied closely to Iran.

Both Sunni and Shiite officials in Baghdad blame two government-linked Shiite paramilitary forces for some of the attacks: the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization. Sunni officials charge that militia leaders are involved, while Shiite officials believe that the attackers are renegade members of the groups. Both militias have close ties to Iran and have been implicated in death-squad operations against Sunni Arabs, although the Mahdi militia’s leaders have publicly told their members to abide by a cease-fire.

Citizen guardsmen and Iraqi intelligence officials say they have also captured Iranians with hit lists and orders to attack Awakening members. ...

“Badr is the worst threat,” said [an Awakening soldier], referring to the military arm of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a leading Shiite political party. The next greatest threat, he said, is the Mahdi Army, the armed wing of the political movement of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Both militias have deep influence in Iraq’s security forces. ...

An Iraqi intelligence official ... said that the most dangerous threat, however, was posed by the Mahdi and Badr militias who, he claimed, were working with Iran to undermine the Awakening movement.

“Two weeks ago, we captured one Iraqi and two Iranians meeting in a house in Baghdad,” he said. “They are hitting the Sunni councils, because the Shiites think that they will form a Sunni militia that will be a force to hit them hard. When we capture these Shiite militiamen, they tell us they have orders from Iran.”

This seems pretty accurate to me. While the Mahdi Army has, from time to time, taken part in ethnic-cleaning bloodletting, seeking to purge Sunnis from areas in Baghdad, the Badr Corps and its intelligence arm have carried out targeted assassinations in Iraq for the past five years, apparently with Iranian support and intelligence aid. They've targeted former Iraqi intelligence officials, current ones, army officers, air force pilots, and former Baathists by the thousands. What's interesting here is that, given America's support for the Awakening movement, the ISCI-Badr people involved in these killings are ostensible American allies killing other U.S. allies.