Tell me Ray Odierno is pulling a Halloween stunt.

He can't be serious: Does the general really think that by shouting "Boo!" in The Washington Post that Iran and its agents in Baghdad are going to run away?

The joke's on him. Baghdad politicians have gone into high Inspector Renault mode over the U.S. commander's charge that some Iraqi politicians are on the payroll of Iran.

Well, what a shock. Next you'll tell us mullahs wear turbans.

Ray, Ray, Ray: Think this through.  Bribes are beside the point. Most Iraqi Shia politicians don't need to be paid. That's just hummus.

Many of them, including our handpicked Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, welcome what sometimes looks like a slow-motion anschluss by their Iranian co-religionists.

Others say the Iraqis -- Arabs -- will never forfeit their patriotism to the Persian-Iranians in the interest of advancing shia hegemony. The two fought each other to a bloody pulp for most of the 1980s.

Still, it's a powerful force. To many shia, it's 1,400 years overdue: The Sunnis kept them down for centuries. Now the Shiites finally have the Sunni boot off their necks, thanks in no small measure to us, and they're not going to lie down under it again.

Iran is going to have a powerful say in Iraqi affairs, no less than we have a say in Mexico's -- and probably a lot more. 

Too bad for you, General, that Maliki & Co. were made a "sovereign" power by the Bush administration. Now they're taking it seriously. They're threatening to throw us out if we don't drop our insistence on prohibiting the Iraqi prosecution of Americans accused of criminal wrongdoing.

Odierno, in response, threatened that $6.3 billion in U.S. bilateral aid and $10 billion worth of military sales could be cut off without a finalized status-of-forces agreement by the end of the year.

Another big "boo." The Iraqis could call Odierno's bluff without breaking a sweat.

What a mess. The current kerfuffle is just the latest manifestation of the Bush administration's strategic blunder in so quickly toppling Iran's archenemy, the Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, after chasing the Sunni Taliban from power in Afghanistan.

Now the Iranians are poised to make Baghdad into their satrap via their U.S.-backed mates.  Does that define terrible irony or what?

And there's not much Ray Odierno can do about it. Like King Canute, he's shouting at the incoming tide.