Where's the Smoking Gun on Iran? (TIME)

[eppur_se_muova]

As the Bush Administration inches closer to confronting Iran, don't expect it to produce a bona fide smoking gun. Despite the claims made at the highly secretive military briefing in Baghdad over the weekend, intelligence conclusively implicating Iran in attacks on American forces isn't there — and never will be.

There's little doubt that the Iranians have free run of much of Iraq; are supplying arms and ammunition to Shi'a militias; and are committed to seeing the United States fail in that country. Iran already essentially owns Basra as well as several other large Shi'a towns in the south. And, unlike our own, Iranian interests in Iraq are unambiguous. In 2004, when I was in Qum, an influential Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Sanae, told me with chilling clarity: Should the situation in Iraq deteriorate to the point that the Shi'a are seriously threatened, Iran will have no choice but to step in militarily. Even, he made clear, at the risk of American retaliation.

But that does not answer this question: Are the Iranians themselves pulling the trigger, killing our troops, or are they ordering their Iraqi surrogates to do so? There are a couple of good reasons the Administration can't tell us. For one, the group the Administration named Sunday as providing weapons to the insurgents — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Quds force — is virtually impenetrable. Secretive and disciplined, the Quds force is more a cult than anything else. Its members are all believers, meticulously selected, vetted and controlled. Another reason we'll probably never catch the Quds force red handed is that it communicates sensitive information by courier. No blogs or calling home to brag to mom about everything they're doing in Iraq for Allah and Iran.
***
This leaves the Administration in a quandary, especially trying to sell a confrontation with Iran to a suspicious Democratic Congress and an American public that now knows it was duped by bogus intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion.

If indeed a confrontation is in the cards, I don't see that the Administration has a choice other than to provoke an incident — force the Iranians to fire back in the clear light of day, letting the United States invoke self defense, U.N. Article 51. Options might include arresting or assassinating the Mahdi Army leader Moqtada Al-Sadr, chasing Iranians in hot pursuit across their border, or, more bluntly, bombing a Quds Force base in Iran in the name of force protection.
***
Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down.
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(not much) more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1588810,00.html

[whistle]

1. "...arresting or assassinating the Mahdi Army leader Moqtada Al-Sadr"

...which is what the U.S. is attempting to do at this moment. Sadr has fled to Iran and I'll bet Bush will order special forces or a bombing raid into Iran to get Sadr dead or alive. This could be the start of an international incident that ignites the war with Iran. Stay tuned

[struggle4progress]

2. This is fairly typical of Time's rightwing line -- and a good example ..

.. of the general tactics used by a number of their commentators.

The thrust of the article is that we'll go to war with Iran, and most of the energy is devoted to rationalizing the fact that no good reason will ever be given.

:puke:

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Well, the guy is former CIA. But he is warning that Bu**sh**'s excuse lacks credibility.

So I guess you could say this is a case where someone who shares some of the older conservative mindset is saying Bu**sh**co may be going too far -- at least in a pragmatic sense, even if there doesn't seem to be any moral outrage there at all.

If you can't get them to say "this is wrong", at least hope they'll understand "this won't work". Right result, wrong reason, can still save lives.

[struggle4progress]

4. Reread the article: he hooks readers by suggesting he disagrees with the Administration but

he's really arguing for war with Iran.

He claims (1) the White House is right; (2) the Iranians are so clever there will never be any proof the WH is right; (3) the Dems are too suspicious; so (4) the WH has "no choice" but to engineer an incident to justify war with Iran.

TIME plays this game predictably.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Well, I definitely did a "WTF" at the phrase "no choice" in the article.

But I took it as "well, of course" this guy is going to say that.

Not sure every reader will see what's actually written there in plain sight, or whether they will only get what he's trying to say. It looks to me like he's having to admit the evidence is not there -- but that's not at all what HE thinks is the point. I just disagree as to what the real point is, and I hope other readers will too.