Do Not Spin Us Into Iran

We keep hearing that Iran is directly involved in Iraq supplying arms and plans (apparently) to insurgents attacking US troops. Bush issued orders to target Iranians in Iraq - apparently as agents provacatours. Most recently, the administration is trying to make the case that the EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) are being made in Iran and shipped by the Iranian government into Iraq. In the Feb 13th Marine Times, General Pace denied and basis for such a claim.

Bush once misquoted the addage "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool Me twice, shame on me." Hopefully the public (and the politicians) are going to be asking a lot more questions this time around. Unfortunately, Bush may make act first, and dare a rebuke later. Or as Cheney often repeats - "they can't stop us."

Now I am no weapons expert, or even particularly knowledgeable about the arms trade, but even if some of the components for EFPs are, that hardly means that Iran is shipping them into Iraq. After all, my guess is that many of the weapons, and bomb components in Iraq have US markers on them. We are by all accounts the largest arms suppliers in the world. Likewise, there are likely a fair number of M16s being used against US troops, and much of the munitions used by the US (and likely others) are actually made in China. It was reported a couple of years ago that large numbers (I believe over 100,000) U.S. RPGs were "loose" out there somewhere. That was when Homeland Security (and the corporate media) were airing all the concerns that someone with one to these loose RPGs was going to shoot down U.S. commercial aircraft.

Further, I hear that the Iran - Iraq border is at least as porous as the U.S. borders. Meaning that movement across that border is not particularly restrictive. Perhaps part of that missing 300 plus tons of missing U.S. money is buying the components for the EFPs (and other weapons).

I have also heard in radio interviews with supposed experts, that the ones primarily using EFPs are in Sunni controlled areas. That would seem to significantly decrease the likelihood of the Iranian government, as they are Shia an much more likely to support Shia supremacy in Iraq than Sunni. But hey, we are pretty dumb in the US about stuff like that. Aren't "they" all Islamic "extremists."

Indeed, the whole tale generates a lot more questions than it does answers. I imagine that Pace is on a short track for derailing the administration's claim that these weapons are being supplied by the Iranian government. Of course, we were selling parts for F14s to Iran (whoops, military parts to an proscribed nation). Maybe we had better preemptively strike ourselves. (That's sarcasm in case anyone thinks otherwise.)