Thread: Iran's Provocations - Helping to kill GIs with impunity.

Iran's Provocations
Helping to kill GIs with impunity.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST


U.S. military officials finally laid out detailed evidence on Sunday that Iranian-supplied weapons are killing American soldiers in Iraq. The issue now is the lesson the Bush Administration and the American political establishment draw about dealing with Iran.

Our guess is that a large part of Washington will pretend the evidence doesn't exist, or suggest the intelligence isn't proven, or claim that it's all the Bush Administration's fault for "bullying" Iran. This was the impulse behind the Baker-Hamilton Commission's recommendation late last year that the U.S. "engage" Tehran to help us find some honorable diplomatic or political solution in Iraq.

But the evidence about Iranian-style munitions shows how wishful such thinking is. The Iranians don't want a political solution that would allow a U.S.-backed moderate Shiite government to rule in Baghdad. Their goal is to make us bleed in order to drive us home and so allow their radical Shiite allies to hold sway and Iran to become the dominant regional power. They also figure that the bloodier the defeat they can impose, the less likely the U.S. will be to ever consider promoting regime change in Tehran or Damascus.

Pentagon sources have been saying for several years that Iranian-style munitions have been appearing in Iraq, and arms smugglers have been caught coming across the Iranian border. What's new is that the Iranian-marked weapons have actually been put on display and an estimate of their toll made public: more than 170 Americans killed in action and more than 600 wounded.




The main culprit is a specially made roadside bomb the Army calls an EFP, or "explosively formed penetrator." Unlike the jerry-rigged Iraqi shells that Sunni extremists have used to inflict the vast majority of casualties against U.S. forces, the EFP is shaped to penetrate armor and hence effective against harder targets than Humvees. The U.S. Stryker brigade now in Baghdad has been finding them in the city with increasing regularity. In the past this type of roadside bomb has been used against Israeli tanks by Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.


According to the Defense Department, Iranian officials detained recently by U.S. forces in Iraq possessed documents suggesting they might have been involved in this arms trade. One of them was Moshin Chizari, a very senior Revolutionary Guards commander arrested but later released because of his "diplomatic" status in December. "Iran is a significant contributor to attacks on coalition forces, and also supports violence against the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi people," said a Defense official in Baghdad.

"Significant" is an important word here. Sunni extremists affiliated with al Qaeda and Saddam's Baath Party remain by far the largest threat to American forces in Iraq. And we don't believe that the news about Iran should cause anyone to lose sight of the primary U.S. mission in the coming months: securing Baghdad against Sunni terror, so that Iraqi Shiites won't turn to militias for protection.

Still, it would be nice if the Bush Administration and Members of Congress would send Tehran the message that it will not be allowed to kill Americans with impunity. President Bush has been speaking out about this of late, but the main concern on Capitol Hill seems to be deterring Mr. Bush rather than telling Iran to stop killing GIs. Won't any of the Democratic Presidential candidates speak out and say that, no matter what they think of Iraq, Iranian help for killing Americans is a hostile act?

Hitting Revolutionary Guards targets, or Iranian weapons factories if they can be located, also shouldn't be out of the question when the lives of American soldiers are at stake. If General David Petraeus, the new and hardly reckless Iraq theater commander, thinks such pressure on Iran is crucial to securing his Baghdad mission, he deserves to get the go-ahead.




The larger lesson here concerns the nature of the Iranian regime and its nuclear ambitions. Iran's provocations in Iraq have been deadly enough, but they might be far more aggressive if the mullahs no longer fear the ability of the U.S. to hit back. As a nuclear power, they may well become even more reckless in attacking the interests of the U.S. and its regional allies. Then we'll see what a real bully looks like.

"Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from
Dow Jones & Company, Inc."

When confronted with this information, Leftists and Democrats were seen holding their hands tightly to their ears and were heard screaming, "NO NO NO, you are LYING to me AGAIN!"

Of course we all know that Ahmandinejad is a voice of REASON in the area and it is Bush who is the crazy person. :whistling:

:sarcasm:

You beelieve everything you read huh? LOL!

Of course, when clueless muggles read this, they'll completely forget Zbigniew Brezinski and Ron Paul, two hard-core conservatives (albiet of different stripes) warning that the Bush regime is likely going to engineer a "Gulf of Tonkin type incident" in order to justify war with Iran.

Truth Defector, you should go scare people for FOX TV, they'd hire a writer like you in a NY minute.....

Originally Posted by Truth Detector

When confronted with this information, Leftists and Democrats were seen holding their hands tightly to their ears and were heard screaming, "NO NO NO, you are LYING to me AGAIN!"

Then there are the morons who want to believe a known liar even though the liar has no credibility. Hmmmmm.

Of course we all know that Ahmandinejad is a voice of REASON in the area and it is Bush who is the crazy person.

Ahmandinejad has some credibility whereas the Bush administation has none.

Hmmm.. seems our top brass thinks differently then some of the sheep do. He must have went astray from the flock!

U.S. general: No evidence Iran is arming Iraqis
JAKARTA, Indonesia - A top U.S. general said Tuesday there was no evidence the Iranian government was supplying Iraqi insurgents with highly lethal roadside bombs, apparently contradicting claims by other U.S. military and administration officials.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. forces hunting down militant networks that produced roadside bombs had arrested Iranians and that some of the material used in the devices were made in Iran.

U.S. general: No evidence Iran is arming Iraqis - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

I guess there's nothing else for BushCo to do but maybe stage an attack, then remove all evidence? Another bump on PNAC Blvd.

Pace is just trying to prevent people from jumping to immediate conclusions and doing brash things. Of course he knows who the enemy is, but for PR reasons, you don't want to be saying it all the time.

I second the motion to give TruthDetector a job working for Fox, his IQ doesn't reach the point where he's over-qualified for the job.

I may be new 2 this website. And to the working of the world. But last time I check wasn't attacking a forgein nation an act of war.
We have captured members of the Iranian military who have attack our nations.
When you send troops to attack and enemy i think you just basicly declared war.
So if Iran is sending arms,and troops to kill us why don't we attack them.


p.s. I also believe that if we attack a nation like Iran we should not attack like we did in the Iraq war. There should be more action. An attack by the USA should not be negatable, but memoralbe. We should attack them with so much force that all restance should be crushed in the frist weak of battle. We should attack like we attack nazi germany. We should let the hammer fall.