Juan Cole on Bush's motives for Shiite crackdown.

[Dhalgren]

"Bush says US troops are authorized to "kill or capture" suspected Iranian intelligence agents operating in Iraq. Thousands of Iranians go in and out of Iraq as pilgrims to the Shiite holy sites, so personally I'm skeptical you can know which ones are spies. And, like, it wouldn't be good to kill the pilgrims. Might cast the US in a bad light with the Shiites and all that. I'd say this man is looking for a pretext for another war.

Plus, when you look at where US troops are being killed, it is in Sunni Arab al-Anbar Province, and Sunni Arab Salahuddin, Diyal, Mosul, and West Baghdad. Those Sunni guerrillas are not being helped by Iran. They are being helped by Sunnis in countries allied to the US.

And then, the US hold over 10,000 prisoners swept up on suspicion of insurgent activity in Iraq. What number of them is Iranians? Slim to none. More Syrians and Jordanians and Saudis by far than Iranians.

So if 99 percent of the problem is with the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, why all this big talk about Shiite Iran?

Because this man is looking for a pretext for another war."


I think that Dr. Cole is dead on. And it is scary and depressing that "our" government and "our" military are going to let him do this.

Juan also has a good analysis of the kidnapping and execution of the US troops by Sunni insurgents. His blog today is an exceptionally good one.

www.juancole.com

[pwb]

1. Iran supplying ied's to kill Americans

what about all the ammunition bush supplied to Israel to bomb lebanon back twenty years? do as i say not as i do??

[Kagemusha]

4. According to a recent Guardian article..

It's not IED's that Iran's funneling, it's RPG's and mortar rounds mostly. And to the extent any of it goes to the Mahdi Army, it's purely for causing Americans trouble, not because of any love for the Mahdi Army.

[pwb]

5. my point was was we supply arms to Israel

and they kill Arabs and muslims. but when Iran does it we should attack them? bullshit....

[SOS]

11. It's also preposterous

to think that a country steeped in 30 years of Baathist militarism can't construct a bomb without help from Iran.
At the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility, 300 tons of plastic explosives disappeared right from under the nose of the US military.
The idea that Iraqi insurgents (some of whom were weapons experts in the Iraqi Army) can't make sophisticated IEDs from that material is ludicrous.
Blaming Iran for these IEDs is nothing more than an excuse for starting the next huge fiasco.

[Kagemusha]

13. It annoys me they lord over about IED's and miss the mortars and RPG's.

Which of course, are ubiquitous stuff and not likely to be traced with any degree of accuracy.

And there have not been anywhere near the number of attacks on US troops from Shiite forces than against Al Qaeda (strikes at Brits in the south don't count).

[High Plains]

2. A voice of sanity cutting through the fog of bullshit. n/t

The accusation is that the Shia Iranians are supplying sophisticated IEDs to the Sunni insurgents. It doesn't make sense on the face of it.

[Bucky]

8. No, the Mahdi army are the Sadrists--they're Shiites, not Sunnis. But they're also anti-Iran

Well, they were anti-Iran for a while. But once again Mr Bush has worked his "uniter, not a divider" magic overseas.

[Kagemusha]

9. Yeah, that's my point with reply #4 above

Sadr's promising to hurt US forces in Iraq if Iran is ever attacked got him a lot of... tolerance, in Tehran.

[rodeodance]

3. someday soon --innocents will be shot down.

[SOS]

6. "Saudis reportedly funding Iraqi Sunni insurgents"

"CAIRO (AP) — Private Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq and much of the money is used to buy weapons, including shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, according to key Iraqi officials and others familiar with the flow of cash.
Saudi government officials deny that any money from their country is being sent to Iraqis fighting the government and the U.S.-led coalition.
But the U.S. Iraq Study Group report said Saudis are a source of funding for Sunni Arab insurgents. Several truck drivers interviewed by The Associated Press described carrying boxes of cash from Saudi Arabia into Iraq, money they said was headed for insurgents."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-08-saudis-sunnis_x.htm

"In his March study of Arab fighters in Iraq, Reuven Paz (director of the Project for the Research of Islamist Movements - PRISM - at Herzliya, Israel) pointed out that "the vast majority of the volunteers that streamed into Iraq are Arabs", and most of these are from Saudi Arabia. He describes as "significant" the involvement of Saudis in the Islamist insurgency in Iraq.

In his analysis of 154 Arabs killed in Iraq in the preceding six month, Paz found that 61% were from Saudi Arabia. He also found that 70% of the suicide bombers were Saudis. "The number of Saudis killed in the past six months in Iraq <94> is too large to be ignored. It strongly suggests the Saudis' direct and active involvement both in the insurgency battles as well as in terrorist operations."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI27Ak03.html

When will Bush crack down on the Saudi terrorists? The hypocrisy is astounding.

[Dhalgren]

7. This is the point that is so frustrating.

The Iranians are not supplying any group directly that is currently causing US casualties that can be proved. But it has been proved that Saudis and Jordanians and Egyptians are supplying arms, men, and money directly to the Sunni insurgents who are killing US troops. I think, personally, that the Sunnis have a right to drive the occupiers out of their country, but for the Bush government to intentionally ignore the groups active in killing US troops in order to trump up a war against a country not directly involved is just so fucking callous and cold. The Bush Family are killing US soldiers for personal and political gain and they are being allow to do it and to expand operations. We are living through a madman's nightmare...

[SOS]

10. It's appalling

The Center for Strategic and International Studies studied the foreign fighters and found them to be Saudi, Algerian, Yemeni, Egyptian, Jordanian and Sudanese. 100% Arab, 0% Persian.
Iranians were not even mentioned in the study.
The British military recently reported no arms coming across the border into Basra. Nothing! Not one case.
Bush is drumming up another phony causus belli, like the non-existant WMD.

Why is our media not reporting the Saudi support for the Sunni insurgency? It seems you're not allowed to mention Saudi Arabia as a source of terrorism.
Mohammed Atta wasn't Iranian.

[Dhalgren]

14. Dead on, SOS, dead fucking on!

[me b zola]

12. k&r

[fed-up]

15. kicking for the night crowd (and hopefully a fifth rec) n/t

[scarletwoman]

16. Happy to help -- here's the 5th rec & another kick... (nt)

[John Q. Citizen]

17. bush mentioned Iran 7 different times in the SOTU, so it seems to be something

he's got a hard on for.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

18. W probably has sexual fantasies involving PNAC

bush mentioned Iran 7 different times in the SOTU, so it seems to be something he's got a hard on for.

We know that he went into Iraq because of the same type of erectile dysfunction. The man needs to stop this geo-political use of Viagra before he starts WWIII.