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U.S. gets more aggressive with Iran

by Open-Publishing - Friday 2 February 2007
10 comments

Wars and conflicts International USA

U.S. gets more aggressive with Iran
Jim Krane and Robert H. Reid – Associated Press via Liberty Forum Feb 1, 2007

Citing Iranian involvement with Iraqi militias and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Bush administration has shifted to offense in its confrontation with Iran – building up the U.S. military in the Persian Gulf and promising more aggressive moves against Iranian operatives in Iraq and Lebanon.

The behind-the-scenes struggle could explode into open warfare over a single misstep, analysts and U.S. military officials warn.

Iraq has become a proxy battleground between the United States and Iran, which is challenging – at least rhetorically – the United States’ dominance of the gulf. That has worried even Iraq’s U.S.-backed Shi’ite prime minister, who also has close ties to Iran.

Iran and the United States already are sparring on the ground. On Jan. 20, militants kidnapped and killed four U.S. soldiers in a raid in Karbala, and a fifth American was killed in the firefight. The attack was so well planned and executed that Iraqi officials suspect Iran may have helped Shi’ite militiamen carry it out, perhaps in retaliation for the arrest of five Iranians by U.S. troops in northern Iraq.

Those five Iranians, who were arrested in the city of Irbil, included two members of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard force that provides weapons, training and other support to Shi’ite militants in the Middle East, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said last week. Iraqi and Iranian officials maintain the five were diplomats.

President George W. Bush said this week that U.S. forces would take action against Iranian operatives in Iraq, while insisting he had no intention of attacking Iran.

The No. 2 U.S. general in Iraq told USA Today in an interview published Tuesday that Iran was supplying Iraqi Shi’ite militias with a variety of powerful weapons, including Katyusha rockets and armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenades.

"We have weapons that we know through serial numbers ... trace back to Iran," Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno said.

The Air Force is considering more forceful patrols on the Iraqi side of the border with Iran to counter the smuggling of weapons and bomb supplies, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing senior Pentagon officials.

The United States also is building up its military presence in the gulf in what it says is a show of strength directed at Iran. A second aircraft carrier is heading for the region, and Patriot missile batteries are being deployed.

Since Bush announced his new Iraq strategy in early January, Iranian officials have raised the alarm repeatedly that the United States intends to attack. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran is "ready for anything."

Last week, a newspaper threatened retaliation for any U.S. military action – including stopping oil traffic through the gulf’s strategic Straits of Hormuz and attacks on U.S. interests. The top editor of the Kayhan daily warned Iran will turn the Middle East into "hell" for the United States and Israel if the United States attacks.

Iran and the United States also are in dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. The United States accuses Iran of secretly developing atomic weapons – an allegation Iran denies. Its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment prompted the United Nations Security Council to impose limited economic sanctions.

The United States also has beefed up support for Lebanon’s government in its power struggle with Hizballah, a Shi’ite militia that the United States accuses of acting in Iran’s interests.

The war of words has raised fears in Congress that the United States and Iran are drifting toward armed conflict at a time when the United States is struggling against determined foes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It also has unnerved the Iraqi government, many of whose members have close ties to Iran.

"We have told the Iranians and the Americans, ’We know that you have a problem with each other, but we’re asking you, please, solve your problems outside of Iraq,’ " Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi’ite, told CNN on Wednesday.

In Tehran, political analyst Hermidas Bavand said U.S. force increases were leading many Iranians to believe the United States is looking to pick a fight.

"It’s an extremely dangerous situation," Bavand said. "I don’t think Tehran wants war under any circumstances. But there might be an accidental event that could escalate into a large confrontation.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070201/NEWS07/702010355/1001/BUSINESS05

Last updated 01/02/2007

Forum posts

  • Isn’t this just amazing, All of a sudden our brilliant military "intelligence"has deduced that Iran is the villain in Iraq....coincidentally following on the heels of Bush and his Zionist Israeli Handlers deciding it is time to attack and Balkanize Iran....This is the continuation of the Zionist PNAC 25 year war plan to Balkanize the entire middle east......
    .....Who is PNAC????
    ......The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is an American political neo-conservative think tank, based in Washington, DC co-founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. The group was established in early 1997 as a non-profit organization with the goal of promoting American global leadership. The chairman is William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and a regular contributor to the Fox News Channel. The Executive Director and chief operating officer has been Gary J. Schmitt. The group is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project, a non-profit 501c3 organization that has been funded by the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation and the Bradley Foundation.[1]

    Present and former members include prominent members of the Republican Party and the Bush Administration, including Richard Armitage, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Ellen Bork (the daughter of Robert Bork), Dick Cheney, Zalmay Khalilzad, Federal Grand Jury Indictee Lewis "Scooter’" Libby, Richard Perle, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. Many of the organization’s ideas, and its members, are associated with the neoconservative movement. PNAC has seven full-time staff members, in addition to its board of directors.

    • I don’t think Iran would last any longer than a week. After that, our problems in Iraq and Iraq’s problems would magically go away. The war with Iran is already in gear. The war front however is now in Iraq. We need to move the front closer to Tehran.

    • Are China and Russia going to allow the US to flatten Iran.

    • Yes, neither would (will) get involved to any great degree. Iran has become a great problem, not only for the USA and the people of Iraq but also China, Russia and the rest of the world. Iran’s nuclear weapons can go both directions. Remember the US hostage situation, how quickly the people in the US forget. They are essentially doing the same thing today only with nuclear weapons. The biggest problem in dealing with the Iran situation, are the hysterical people in the USA.

    • To 64.77: Iran has no nuclear weapons to speak of, mon ami. Iran has not attacked any country nor has it started any wars in this or the last century. Can you say the same thing about the US?

      As for the US hostage situation with 55 Americans hostages: So what? Eventually all of those 55 hostages were freed. You either don’t remember or you are as ignorant of the events of 27 years ago as you are ignorant of the events of the last 6 years.

      According to you we should start another war with yet another oil rich, Muslim nation because, get this, of the American hostages captured 27 years ago, hostages that were eventually freed when Reagan was inaugurated. Get a brain. You people would like to start wars against Muslims with the smallest, the weakest of pretenses. I call that out and out racism. Most Americans don’t confuse patriotism with racism, bozo, so go back to Moon Bat Central, go back to that kennel of rabid racists from whence you came. You won’t find anyone even close to your pathetic ilk here.

      The US military has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, all Muslims, but obviously, you don’t know anything about that kind of atrocity, do you, 64.77? In your sick racist mind, the deaths of tens of thousands of Muslims at the hands of your beloved US military is no great crime, right? Muslims are mere cockroaches, not human beings in your terrified little mind, so killing them has the same karmic effect as killing insects, right, Mr. Scared-shitless? To any intelligent and dispassionate observer of the Middle East it is the Muslims who have all the right in the world to be terrified of the US and its propensity to wage war on destitute nations that happen to be rich in natural resources.
      Go to your neighborhood church, 64.77, see if the pastor agrees with your warped desire to have the US military kill more Muslims, since you are too much of a coward to act out these genocidal tendencies on your own. All of you war hawks are actually Chicken-shit hawks, all full of talk, foaming at the mouth with hysteria, but expect others to do the walking, and the killing, for you.

      Apparently you are helping the neo-fascists lead the way in hysteria and calling for yet another war with yet another innocent country, something our nation cannot afford, unless you and your kind don’t care about our current economic situation. Any further increases in
      war expenditures will inevitably precipitate the collapse of the US economy. This means you are ignorant of the huge deficits the Iraq war has caused. MY God man, you know very little about what’s going on in this world!

      You are very wrong in thinking Russia and China won’t do anything if Iran is attacked by the US.
      Google the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. China, Russia, and now India and Iran are part of SCO, an organization very similar to the early European Common Market and NATO. China and Russia know the real reasons behind US aggression in the Middle East. US aggression has nothing to do with combating terrorism, another god-forsaken lie you and your hateful kind continue to peddle to a US public that no longer is being fooled by your insane ranting.
      Why do you think both China and Russia are spending billions upgrading their missle systems? To stop Muslim aggression? Who has more nuclear weapons, numbnuts, the Muslims or the US? Who’s been invading and occupying weak countries, the Muslims or the US?
      Do us all a favor and go back to Boorz.com and stay there.

    • Interesting, when the USA puts the pressure on, you cry!

    • To 24.116...............Sweet TRUTH......
      As for the nukes.....U.S.A.-1000’s Israel-400+......Who also declined to sign nuke proliferation agreement
      .................HMMMMMMMMMM?? Who are the bad guys???
      ....Now let’s segway to this past week and Dougie Feith(ZionistJew) who "cooked up" the BULLSHIT connection of Saddam and Osama/alCIAda.....Those of us who indicate the Zionist Jews are VERY aware of this type of advisement and policy manipulation by the like of ..Feith,Chertoff,Kristol,Negroponte,Fleischer,Pearle,lieberman,.etc etc. etc...ad nauseaum....and historically,Kissinger,Barnard Baruch and Col.Edwin Mandell House ALL THE WAY BACK to WW1!!!!
      ......."if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and SMELLS like a duck ,it must be A Jewish DUCK!!!

  • The hallmark of pathological behavior is: they are willing to kill themselves in an effort to destroy their "target" which in this case is HUMANITY!!!! "pathological humans figure that if they are going down they will take everyone else with them.....Zionist Hitler(real family name Schickelgrubber/Rothschild) comes to mind when describing this behavior...

  • For God’s sake the problem is NOT Iran!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It’s Israel and it’s cash cow -cannon fodder BUTTLICK,The United States of Israel West..........WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!

  • Bush had Congress’ permission to go into Iraq (although this is now illegal since his reasons for the invasion were lies - WMD, links to 9/11, links to Al Qaida) He now thinks that by linking Iran to this war he won’t have to get Congress’ permission to bomb Iran since they are already involved in it.
    The difference between Vietnam and Iraq? Bush had a plan to get out of Vietnam.