It is not an understatement to say that we sit on the edge of war with Iran. Earlier today a group of armed men wearing Iraqi commando uniforms siezed Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary at the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. The uniforms suggested a unit affiliated with the American command hierarchy, which only means so much when even US uniforms and vehicles can be bought and sold on the Iraqi street.
Spokesmen for US and Iraqi forces have denied any involvement, which also means only so much when both have already mortgaged their credibility over lesser matters. At this point Iran has some justification in treating official pronouncements as so much noise.
Some will scoff about Iranian respect for embassies and just desserts, and on a certain level they may be right. Hypocrisy, &c. I hope that leaves a warm feeling when the Sadrists and the Mahdi Army, which is to say a decent fraction of the Iraqi armed forces, turn their attention from sectarian war to supporting an Iranian campaign aginst us, when it isn’t just the Saudi-backed Sunni insurgents downing our helicopters with modern shoulder-fired missiles and when daily casualties reach the mid double digits. People often forget that 150,000 180,000 US forces in Iraq are essentially hostages to Iran’s good will. Our huge bases depend on resupply convoys which cross hundreds of miles of Shiite territory. Ammo, food, water and fuel gets through because the locals let it through.
1st Lt. Dan Quinn of the 1st ID:
“People (in America) think it’s bad, but that we control the city. That’s not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It’s hostile territory.”
Denials notwithstanding, we can nonetheless rule out several major players. The Mahdi army is clearly out, unless someone thinks that Iran will attack itself. Giving some weight to the rumors of Iranian support, the Sadrists have little to gain by cutting off their own food chain. That would seem to rule out most local forces given that important ministries are thinly disguised fiefdoms of Sadrists and SCIRI. Ahmad Chalabi, himself a likely agent of Iran (a surprising number of those in postwar Iraq, n’est-ce pas?), seems unlikely to send his goon squad after his primary patron. In fact I’m having a very hard time imagining the US giving an order this sensitive to any Baghdad army unit and trusting them to carry it out unsupervised. When was the last time an Iraqi unit under the US chain of command managed anything unsupervised?
Don’t get me wrong, I have no doubt that our airhead leaders would love to cook up a convenient Gulf of Tonkin incident. I just doubt that even the geniuses in VP Cheney’s office would start it off with an act as inexcusable and undeniably a first-shot provocation as abducting a senior diplomat at gunpoint in broad daylight.
At this point I’m simply thinking out loud, but I suspect that the story has more to do with this.
A growing number of Iraqis blamed the United States on Sunday for creating conditions that led to the worst single suicide bombing in the war, which devastated a Shiite market in Baghdad the day before. They argued that slowness in completing the vaunted new American security plan has made Shiite neighborhoods much more vulnerable to such horrific attacks.
The chorus of critics said the new plan, which the Americans have barely started to execute, has emasculated the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that is considered responsible for many attacks on Sunnis, but which many Shiites say had been the only effective deterrent against sectarian reprisal attacks in Baghdad’s Shiite neighborhoods.
[…] In advance of the plan, which would flood Baghdad with thousands of new American and Iraqi troops, many Mahdi Army checkpoints were dismantled and its leaders are either in hiding or under arrest. With no immediate influx of new security forces to fill the void, Shiites say, Sunni militants and other anti-Shiite forces have been emboldened to plot the type of attack that obliterated the bustling Sadriya market in central Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 135 people and wounding more than 300 from a suicide driver’s truck bomb.
With Sunni insurgents free to roam Baghdad one has to wonder what other atrocities they have planned. Former Baathists and al Qaeda (far from the same thing of course) have means, motive, opportunity. From their perspective it’s hard to imagine an act more immersed in classic military doctrine than provoking one enemy, the Iranian-backed Shiites, into open conflict with the other, us.
As I said, thinking out loud. But something to keep in mind.
Derek
Gee, I would have thought we where at war with Iran since the day they killed 19 of our troops in the Kobal Towers bombing back in the 90s…
Tim F.
I must have missed the declaration, authorization of use of force, etc. Care to link to it?
Punchy
It’s painfully clear that Lieutenant Dan has a book to sell.
norbizness
There is a distinct disadvantage to using a well-known person as your reason for going into a disastrous war, as opposed to, say, two destroyers.
norbizness
Sorry, I always cut off reading about halfway through, which is why it appears that I inexplicably duplicated a point made by the author.
Zombie Santa Claus
Terrorists NEVER provide one. We didn’t get one when Fort Sumter was shelled, we didn’t get one when the Maine was sunk, we didn’t get one at Pearl Harbor, and we didn’t get one on 9/11. That’s the way our enemies work. They hate us for our freedom, and fear us so much they have to attack without warning or provocation. Well, this time let’s not get caught with our pants down. This time, let’s do them before they do us.
Remember the Maine! Nuke Iran!
tBone
This edit brought to you by the Strunk & White Committee to Eliminate Excess and Unnecessary Verbiage.
demimondian
Particularly since…err…the Kobal Towers incident was never linked to Iran, and evolved in a manner more like an Al Qaeda attack (c.f. USS Cole).
dreggas
Lieberman in this weeks New Yorker –
Notice the bold quote, I believe it was Bin Laden who said we had no stomach for a long fight and called us a paper tiger. Given his shillitude Lieberman’s own words damn the right and the neo-cons. Rawstory also has a really good investigative report talking about how a war with Iran has been in the works for years now. I’m not surprised, I’m just waiting for…oh…March.
Zifnab
What has our Administration said about thinking, Tim? You’re only emboldening the terrorists.
Pb
And oh how easily the neo-cons are baited. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, The GOP Lets Osama bin Laden Run Their Foreign Policy–oh, and honorary member Lieberman too.
TenguPhule
Shorter Derek: All Arabs look the same to me.
Zifnab
But… but… but… the terrorists double-dog dared us not to leave Iraq. If we pull out now, they’ll think we’re wussies. Then it’ll be weggies every time I go to use the water-fountain from now till next Sunday.
demimondian
Ummm…TP? Iranians are Persian, not Arab, and they’re quite sensitive to the difference.
dreggas
Yeah to the point where persians even look like arabs.
Yep but it really amazing how many different forms bin laden takes, I mean the guy must have supernatural shapeshifting abilities because he somehow morphed into Saddam but Saddam was killed so he was reincarnated as Ahmadinejad or something.
I am proven right even more in the belief that the GOP can only exist so long as they have some outside existential threat, perceived or real, to prop up their ridiculous ferver-swampitude. The cold war ended and they needed a new enemy otherwise they’d flounder.
Jake
Better clap harder to drown out those unhappy thoughts!
Paddy O'Shea
New Gallup Poll shows Shrub’s approval falling to 32%, with approval for whatever it is he is doing in Iraq falling to 26%.
Pretty much rock bottom.
http://www.galluppoll.com/
Zifnab
The big kicker in all this is the Republican assumption that we can do more than make a bigger mess in the Middle East. Who the hell are they trying to help? Oil Companies want nice, stable, totalitarian regimes to pump crude from. The Saudis certainly DON’T want a Shia controlled Iraq, much less one giant civil war right next door. Neo-Cons want a strong and shapely military to bludgeon their enemies, not a burned out husk weighed down by war debt. MonicaGate doesn’t hold a candle to the epic scandals that will haunt the GOP for years. And if Bush is worried about his legacy… at least he can sleep better knowing he won’t be forgotten.
If we go to war with Iran, who the hell wins?
Punchy
Punchy
Probably the most concise, truthful, and spot-on statement I’ve read here in awhile. Well said.
By the way…all those predictions about a March invasion?? NO WAY the NCAA allows this. No chance. CBS would be forced to choose between showing many young dead brown-skinned people and many young alive ones. That’s a choice they’ll refuse to accept.
Look for the bombing to start April 3rd…
Pb
dreggas,
That’s essentially how it works: bin Laden is Hitler, Saddam is Hitler, Ahmadinejad is Hitler, therefore Ahmadinejad is bin Laden, and vice versa.
Faux News
Sad, but true. I love to freak out the Darrells & Derek’s of the world by saying “not all arabs are muslims, and not all muslims are arabs”. They can’t quite grasp even that concept. To them “arab” and “muslim” are interchangable.
HyperIon
Latin police
Kirk Spencer
re dates, allow me to point out that the UNSC’s sanctions resolution has two deadlines for Iran to ‘act appropriately’. One is 60 days, the other is 90. Since the resolution was signed the 23d of December, that’s the 21st of Feb and the 23d of March, respectively.
The cover may be thin, but it is cover.
TenguPhule
Al Queda.
TenguPhule
You know that and I know that. But Derek doesnt’t.
dreggas
Many get pissed if you even call them Iranian because they identify as persian first.
Tsulagi
Yeah, let’s make sure we race down to the lowest common denominator. Raiding embassies and alternative interrogation? Fuck yeah, that’ll make America great. Don’t know why the squeamish keep beheadings off the table.
Don’t be so quick on that one. Sadr’s Mahdi Army and Hakim’s SCIRI/Badr Brigades have had some open clashes for turf and power during the past few years. Iran has warm feelings for both, but Hakim is definitely their guy. Sadr and his buds favor a more Taliban like style of Islam and governing; Hakim is more refined supporting the ‘liberal’ Iranian style of his patrons. Sadr is such a megalomaniac that at some point he’s going to feel he’s outgrown Iran.
So 30 gunmen in Iraqi commando uniforms snatch an Iranian diplomat. The linked story says police at the scene fire on and arrest six of them. Later, another security force arrives and tells the police they’re taking the six to another security building. They never arrive. Sounds like just another day in New Detroit to me.
That place is getting so fucked up. BTW, a friend of mine in Iraq mentioned during a call last week that Iraqi Waco a week ago might not have been as advertised. He stressed it was just rumor, and there are plenty of them flying, but that we were used.
The rumor is pro-Iranian ISF decided to whack an anti-Iranian Shia tribe that was on its way to the Ashura celebrations. When they didn’t cooperate and fired back, since we’ve told them we don’t want to the in the middle of sectarian shit, ISF pushed our go buttons saying they were AQ and Saddam loyalists. Later knowing we’d find that was bullshit, they changed their story to the group being religious nutjobs. Just rumor, but that sounds a whole lot more plausible. The place is a mess.
RSA
Thanks, I’ve already had dinner. Unintuitively, it’s “just deserts”.
/boring pedant
Punchy
My friend Jordon and I were shopping. Dubai or not to buy? Iraq’d my brain for an answer; the owner was unscrupulous. As we walked in, I Saudi’d raised the price, and Egypt’d me out of $20 last week on a Persian rug. Kurd he do it again?? After all, it was a Qatar I wanted. Israel craftsmanship worth anything nowadays? Being that it was a Sunni day, and in good spirits, Iran home for dinar and later came back with money.
scarshapedstar
Ain’t freedom grand?
demimondian
True. And don’t *ever* refer to their language as Farsi.
Punchy
Farsi is a farce, farsi can tell…
Krista
RSA – I always wondered why that was, too. And now I know:
Cool.
ThymeZone
You lie like a rug.
Sorry, just had to make a rug reference.
I’m easily amused.
TenguPhule
And we must beat you for it.
ThymeZone
I’m floored by your behavior.
ThymeZone
My hunch is that Iran “war” talk is deliberately stirred up by White House gum-flappers in order to deflect attention from implosion of Iraq, buy time, buy political cover. They know that war with Iran now is unsupportable, but they are not above using Iran as a big jackalope.
It’s the same thing Kim Jong Il does with the US in North Korea. We are the perpetual devil there. Same thing.
TenguPhule
You may wax eloquent in your words. But I can still mop the floor with you. :P
TenguPhule
They’re not smart enough for that. They want another war to distract from the other two going badly. And the only thing stopping them is the Iranian leadership. Which isn’t very comforting.
Punchy
I respectfully disagree. Sternly. Wanna wager? If our bombs hit Iranian turf by May, you send me something from Zona (I’ll take The Unit’s sig, f.e.). If we’re still just staring over the border flinging boogers at them, I’ll send you…uh…well…hmmm…I aint got much. Need any calcium chloride or magnesium sulfate? How bout glucose for your coffee?
We’re so into Iran. This Prez is nucking futs.
ThymeZone
okay, deal.
Wilfred
Wow, all these comments, plus:
Let me remind all of us of the USS Vincennes, which shot down an Irnian civilian airliner and killed 290 civilians, including 66 children. The Vincennes mistook a civilian airliner for a an enemy aircraft, in the same way I mistook my ass sometimes for Field Marshal Rumsfeld’s mouth. We, our country, the United States etc., etc, has never apologized.
Check it our here, if you can stomach it after all these years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
Jake
Wag the dog, screw the pooch. ‘Tis all the same to this Admin.
Krista
A bit of fringe humour, that.
TenguPhule
Which is why TZ must be called out on the carpet.
ThymeZone
I’ll give you the brush. I have polished off better than you.
demimondian
That’s pretty plush! You deserve only a brush-off, but I don’t want to pile on.
ThymeZone
I’m getting steamed.
Jon H
Al Qaeda must be pretty happy. They have an opportunity to push the US and Iran into war, just by attacking Iran’s assets in Iraq and making it seem like it could be the US’s fault, or vice-versa.
TenguPhule
Let me polish a response to that.
jake
OT: Bush moves to
secure oil inchase Al Qaida from Africa.“Africom”?
demimondian
Strategically, Africom is long overdue. The division of a vast continent into an afterthought in three separate commands has always been a sore thumb in American military doctrine.
Now, the nature of Chimpy’s reasoning for acting now is debatable, but, the act itself is sensible.
raj
One too many “ss”.
Casus belli.
Nice post, though. Nice to see you young’ns starting to doubt the masters ruling the Republican party. Maybe someday, you’ll understand what we 1960s hippies meant by “don’t trust anyone over 30.”
Beej
Except that now WE’RE over 30!! Ohmygod!!
raj
Except that now WE’RE over 30!!
And that’s one reason why I didn’t trust those–including those here–who were for the war on Iraq before they were against it.
Veeshir
I really should just stay away from here, but I have to make one point that I’m sure you will ignore,
Loved you E&P link, what you forgot to mention when you said the Coalition had “mortgated their credibility” is that AP is now saying that Jamil Hussein isn’t his name so the fact that Coalition said, “No Jamil Hussein works here” is absolutely accurate as even the AP has admitted that’s not his name.