Iraqis ban the Ragheads from Entering, or not

Juan Cole points out that Iraq has banned all non-Iraqi Arabs from entering the country prior to the December 15 elections and notes that that seems to have racist overtones. Somehow, I doubt the ban originated with Iraqis. It doesn't seem likely to me that Arabic Iraqis would have the same anti-Raghead bias that Rush Limbaugh expresses all the time. I'm willing to bet that this ban was handed down from on high (in other words, from the Pentagon, via the US Ambassador to Iraq).