The growing Iranian interference in Iraq at such a critical time is also part of a much wider confrontation over Iran's controversial nuclear program and the conflict that it could trigger.

U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno identified the pair as Ahmad Chalabi and Ali al-Lami.

Chalabi, a Shiite who headed an anti-Saddam Hussein group before the 2003 invasion, was a onetime Pentagon favorite. But he fell from grace when intelligence he provided on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction proved to be catastrophically flawed. He was also accused of passing intelligence to Iran.

Lami, detained in 2008 for a year for involvement in Shiite terrorist bombings that targeted Americans, is the director of the Accountability and Justice Commission charged with rooting out candidates deemed to have had links with Saddam's Baath Party.

Chalabi is chairman of the commission, which was created by parliament in January 2008 to spearhead de-Baathification.

The commission, dominated by Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, has become notorious for conducting anti-Sunni witch hunts that have exacerbated sectarian rivalries. The banned candidates were mainly Sunnis.

Odierno said both men had been in close contact with Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis, the senior Iraqi adviser to Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force.

It is responsible for covert operations outside Iran and has been at the forefront of Iranian undercover activities in Iraq, including training and arming Shiite militant groups.

Chalabi and Lami "are clearly influenced by Iran," Odierno said in Washington Tuesday, referring to Tehran's efforts to ensure its friends dominate the next parliament and probably the government as well.

"We believe they're absolutely involved in influencing the outcome of the election and it's a concern that they've been able to do that over time," Odierno said.

The mass disqualification has resulted in a threatened boycott of the polls by the minority Sunnis, thus ensuring a landslide victory for the Shiite majority, many of whom are active supporters of Iran.

The commission's activities fueled a recent surge of violence by largely Sunni insurgents who seek to wreck the elections and unravel delicate national reconciliation efforts.

That could delay the withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops scheduled to be completed by August if the violence intensifies, as many fear it will.

Interfering in the election process has given Iran an opportunity to complicate conditions in Iraq for the Americans as they try to disengage from seven years of war in hopes of leaving behind a stable democracy.

Tehran's actions in Iraq give it immense leverage at a time when U.S. President Barack Obama's diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to abandon its alleged nuclear arms program are clearly foundering.

By causing massive destabilization in Iraq, possibly enough to postpone a military withdrawal at a time when Obama is escalating the war in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater, Tehran is showing it has some high cards to play on a much broader geopolitical scale.

A small Iranian military incursion into an disputed oil field on Iraq's eastern border in December was intended as a message to Washington that Tehran can turn up the heat at will in Iraq if it feels driven to do so.

The Iranian troops withdrew after a few weeks without bloodshed but the point was made. At the same time, Tehran claimed Iraq owed the Islamic Republic some $1 trillion in reparations for starting the 1980-88 Gulf War.

By destabilizing Iraq, whose oil the Iranians have coveted for so long, Tehran is demonstrating that if it comes under military attack by Israel or the United States over the nuclear issue it has options that can make things difficult for the Americans.

These include closing the Strait of Hormuz and choking off Gulf oil to the rest of the world, or unleashing Hezbollah and Hamas against Israel and U.S. interests globally.

"The Iranians have now driven home that they might initiate a conflict if they assume conflict is inevitable," says George Friedman, director of the Texas global security consultancy Stratfor.

"Even if sanctions were possible, they would leave Iran with the option to do precisely those things Washington cannot tolerate."

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