Bad Fiction With A Drunken Slur

It's been a few months since a good Condi-bashing post, and just in time, Juan Cole comes along with another example of Madam Secretary's staggering incompetence:

Secretary of State Condi Rice wants the Arab states to shield Iraq from Iran's "nefarious influence." Rice seems unaware that she has installed in Baghdad parties like the Islamic Mission Party (al-Da'wa) and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) that are very close to Tehran, and that Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia advised her not invade Iraq because this would happen. And Sunnis, Salafis and Wahhabis would dissuade Iraq's Shiite majority from good relations with their Iranian Shiite neighbors . . . how? Whenever I hear Bush administration officials say something about the Middle East, it is as though I am listening to bad fiction read with a drunken slur. Opinion polling does not find that the Arab publics are afraid of or worried about Iran in any numbers, and in fact Israel's attack on largely defenseless little Lebanon in 2006 made Iran and Hizbullah more popular in the region.

What exactly is Iran's nefarious influence? They helped broker a ceasefire in Basra.