Robert Baer: In Basra today the currency is the Iranian toman, not the Iraqi dinar

[sabra]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1583523,00.html

Are the Iranians Out for Revenge?
Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007 By ROBERT BAER

<snip>

The speculation that Karbala was an IRGC operation may have as much to do with Iraqis' respect for IRGC capacity for revenge as it does with the truth. Nevertheless, we should count on the IRGC gearing up for a fight. And we shouldn't underestimate its capacities. Aside from arming the opposition, the IRGC is capable of doing serious damage to our logistics lines. I called up an American contractor in Baghdad who runs convoys from Kuwait every day and asked him just how much damage."Let me put it this way,"he said."In Basra today the currency is the Iranian toman, not the Iraqi dinar."He said his convoys now are forced to pay a 40% surcharge to Shi'a militias and Iraqi police in the south, many of whom are affiliated with IRGC.

Mindful of the spreading chaos in Iraq, President Bush has promised not to take the war into Iran. But it won't matter to the IRGC. There is nothing the IRGC likes better than to fight a proxy war in another country. 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.

[roamer65]

1. "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

-Gandhi

That's what immediately popped to mind when I read this article.