The Iranian Connection II

I recently discussed in a post entitled The Iranian Connection Michael Ledeen's allegation that Iran is waging war against us. I quoted some snippets from Ledeen's article, which I will provide again, below:

"we had good information that terrorists were in Baghdad, and had gone to the compound. We did not know exactly who they were. We entered the compound and arrested everybody who looked like a usual suspect. One of them told us he was the #3 official of the al Quds unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, a particularly vicious group. He was carrying documents, one of which was in essence a wiring diagram of Iranian operations in Iraq. That wiring diagram included both Shi’ite and Sunni terrorist groups, and was of such magnitude that American officials were flabbergasted."

"I am told that this information has reached the president,"

I stated on January 4th, "Now that we have evidence that Iran IS involved in Iraq, it should and probably will force our hand. I just hope the American people have the stomach for a war with Iran. ... I look forward to Bush's remarks in the coming days regarding changes in US policy towards Iran."

That very same day the White House began floating the idea of increasing troop levels in Iraq. Increase in troops levels from as little as 1500 to as many as 20,000 troops were being floated in the media.

On January 4th, Tony Snow fielded the following questions:

1. Q Did they talk about the merits of increasing U.S. troops in Iraq?
2. Q And did the President suggest that he was inclined to send more troops to Baghdad?
3. Q On another subject, Iraq plans. Has the President signed any order calling for additional U.S. troops?

On January 5th, Mr. Snow fielded more questions about troop levels, some of which referenced recent criticism by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid about any plan to increase troop levels:\

1. Q The President, in his consultations about his new way forward, is he listening to advice from people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who wrote him today to say, "We do not believe that adding more U.S. combat troops contributes to success"?
2. Q But, Tony, there's been a lot of talk about expectation, what the President has or has not decided, one being the surge in U.S. troops. Are you saying at this time that the President still has not made that decision about sending additional troops, and he has not signed any order instructing that to happen?
3. Q Tony, are there, in fact, differences between the President and the Joint Chiefs over whether to increase troops in Iraq?

As you can imagine, each subsequent press conference had similar questions with regards to troop levels in Iraq.

Then on January 10th, less than a week after the US captured Iranian's working with terrorists in Iraq to destabilize the fledgling Iraqi government, the President, on prime time TV, outlined a plan which includeda plan to:

1. commit "more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq"
2. "continue to pursue al Qaeda and foreign fighters" in Iraq
3. "addressing Iran and Syria" - "interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria."
4. "the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region"
5. "work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border."

Few will deny that the President could not simply come out and say, "We have uncovered evidence that Iran has been working with al Qaeda. Evidence which proves a direct Iranian involvement in the ongoing sectarian conflict in Iraq. This action by the Iran government constitutes an act of war, and opens a new front in the war on terror." The political fallout, domestically and internationally would be unbearable, especially with Bush's poll numbers. Not to mention that troop levels in Iraq could not support an all out war with Iran. We need more troops in order to be able to sustain war with Iran. Besides, telling the world that we are going to war with Iran BEFORE our troops are in place would be insane.

However, a troop build-up backed up with another Aircraft Carrier in the middle east would make war against Iran a real feasibility. The "crisis" in Iraq is the perfect justification for putting the necessary units into place to proceed with the next phase of the War on Terror.

This blog is predicting war with Iran by 2008.