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.