The Iranian Connection

While perusing the blogosphere this morning, I came across Faster, Please! and read a post by Michael LeDeen which included among other things:

"Iran is waging [war] against us"

"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,"

"We are in a big war, and we cannot fight it by playing defense in Iraq. That is a sucker’s game."

Not really knowing who LeDeen was, I decided to do a bit of research on him. Typically, you don't say, "I am told that this information has reached the president" without having friends in high places. Wikipedia has a bio on him. He is a conservative, so predictably his bio keeps getting edited by leftys who want to make him look bad. Maybe he deserves it, I don't know him, but his bio on wiki and elsewhere makes it pretty clear that he can pull off a statement like, "I am told that this information has reached the president."

Powerline and others have discussed this article.

LeDeen references a NY Sun article written by Eli Lake.

The article includes the following:

An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms "that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups." The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran's revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.

This is scary. I had suspected for some time that the "civil war" and "sectarian violence" was being fueled by a third party with an interest in the continued violence and destabilization of Iraq. I thought it was probably Al Qaeda, which would be really bad for us. If it is indeed Iran fueling the flames of sectarian violence, this is actually a good thing. It gives us a nation state to hold responsible. Better than a rogue organization, anyway.

I take issue with LeDeen's statement, "We are in a big war, and we cannot fight it by playing defense in Iraq. That is a sucker’s game." It is only a sucker's game when other nation states are directly interfering. Prior to Iranian involvement, it was the perfect game. In one fell swoop Bush deposed an evil dictator, freed and democratized millions of Iraqi's, created a massive military base for future middle east operations, and painted a bright red target in the sand where Al Qaeda and its ilk could amass and be slaughtered by our highly capable military machine. The big red target that is Iraq has effectively diverted Al Qaeda money and resources into fighting a war they cannot win militarily. It is no accident that there have been no major terrorist attacks on the US homeland since 9/11. Sad, Bush almost never gets credit for this.

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 have long held that the American Death Toll in Iraq was something to be praised, not something to make us war-weary. We have had so few casualties, it is astounding. A war with Iran would likely be a very different thing. Certainly, there are many Iranians who yearn for freedom... but unlike what we saw in Iraq, Iran WILL present a strong military response.

If we are going to confront Iran and liberate their people, we will probably have to do this very soon. They have been working feverishly towards completing their nuclear program and amassing an arsenal. If they produce nuclear weapons, they will not hesitate to use them in a military confrontation.

I look forward to Bush's remarks in the coming days regarding changes in US policy towards Iran.