"IT ALL COMES BACK TO IRAN," headlines Andrew Sullivan. "This is crucial. It all comes back to Iran," subheads Lucianne, whose poster, mikkins of Massachusetts comments "This is the beginning of the end." FOXNews reports:
American and Iraqi joint patrols, along with U.S. Special Operations teams, captured two men with explosives in Baghdad on Monday who identified themselves as Iranian intelligence officers, FOX News has confirmed.
Senior officials said it was previously believed that Iran had officers inside Iraq stirring up violence, but this is the first time that self-proclaimed Iranian intelligence agents have been captured within the country.
The Defense officials also confirmed to FOX News that in recent days there has been significant success in tracking down "known bad guys" based on information from local citizens.
Andrew comments:
The news of Iranian officers caught with explosives in Baghdad is also an important turning point. The truth is that the "resistance" to the liberation was always formed around Baathists, Jihadists and Iranian and other foreign meddlers. But until sovereignty was transferred, they could always be portrayed as fighting America, not fighting Iraq. Now, within days of the power transfer, we are seeing the new dynamic. It seems to me that the best reason for voting for Bush this fall is Iran. We know they will fight back soon. We also know that Kerry is closer to the "see-no-evil" French approach to the Iranian mullahs. This is the next phase of the war. It has already started in Iraq.
Saddam is gone, and a free Iraq is taking its first, stumbling baby steps. Now it's Iran's turn to walk the walk. Recall these words from the president's 2002 State of the Union Address:
States like these [North Korea, Iran and Iraq], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
UPDATE: Captain Ed notices that this story is being ignored by the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, not to mention (why bother?) MSNBC, CBS News World, ABC News World. "CNN doesn't carry anything on its front page either, although it has breaking news on Australian killer kangaroos and the legal claims of men dining nude":
I guess a foreign government attacking American troops just doesn't qualify as news. Thank God I found out about those killer kangaroos, though.
Tehran fears the United States is cementing its influence in Iraq. But at the same time, Iran can little afford an open clash with the Americans — something that backing for anti-U.S. violence would likely bring about.
To date, Iran has not been considered a source of manpower or financing for Iraq's mainly Sunni Muslim insurgency, said a Western diplomat in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Instead, it is believed to be involved in intelligence gathering inside Iraq, while quietly funding Shiite political parties in a bid to influence the government that emerges from January's elections, the diplomat said.
"Iran wants to be a silent power broker," said Iranian political analyst Davoud Hermidas Bavand. "And Iran needs to make sure that the government in Iraq will not be America's puppet."
The United States, which has been at odds with Iran since the pro-U.S. shah was toppled in the 1979 Islamic revolution, fears Iran wants to establish a fundamentalist Shiite regime in its own image in Iraq.
Oh, that Liberal news media...
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Posted by: Barbie Jane | December 01, 2004 at 04:21 AM