When all else fails in Iraq,…

blame Iran.
It’s a tried, tired, and (not) true neocon formula, dating to the very first signs of trouble in Iraq after Saddam, four years ago. It’s the same ole’Allan Jackson country music tune “they” trot out, figuring Americans mostly still “love Jesus and talk to God,” but they just don’t know “the difference ‘n Iraq and Iran.”
According to the Voice of America, top US spinmeister General William B. Caldwell (the IVth) told a Baghdad press conference yesterday of familiar “charges” about Iranian weapons and training for Iraqi insurgents :

“We know that they are being in fact manufactured and smuggled into this country, and we know that training does go on in Iran for people to learn how to assemble them and how to employ them… We know that training has gone on as recently as this past month, from detainees debriefs.”

Caldwell clarified that the mentioned “training” of Iraqi insurgents was done by intelligence “surrogates” for Iran.
I wonder what “methods” were used on the “detainees” to get such desired evidence.
The material “evidence” trotted out this time was apparently different from previous briefings. Most media reports focused on weapons claimed to have been captured on Monday, after a “citizen tip” in a Sunni section of Baghdad named “Jihad” (sic). According to the NYTimes,

“The soldiers found a black Mercedes sedan and on its back seat, in plain view, a rocket of a type commonly made in China but repainted and labeled and sold by Iran, said Maj. Marty Weber, a master ordnance technician who joined General Caldwell at the briefing. In the trunk were mortar rounds marked “made in 2006….”
The weapons that the military officials said were of Iranian origin were labeled in English, which Major Weber said was typical of arms manufactured for international sale.”

How convenient!
Why didn’t the New York Times apply the laugh test to that one? Does this mean the Iranians “sold” them or “donated” them? By the way, I don’t recall those alleged Iranian arms in 2002 on the Karine-A headed for Palestine being labeled in English? eh? It is especially thoughtful of those “Iranians” to now mark weapons from Iran in English. It will save American “disinformation” specialists from having to stencil them in Persian or Arabic. (which of course they just wouldn’t do anyway, as my son the Lieutenant would insist…)
The real “headline” grabber though, the change off the broken record, came when US Major General Caldwell remarked,

“We have in fact found some cases recently where Iranian intelligence sources have provided to Sunni insurgent groups some support.”

He apparently didn’t elaborate. But “the quote” gave CNN’s perma-embed @ the Pentagon, Barbara “yes-sir” Starr, a breathless top-billing on CNN for the next eight hours (last I checked). All she could say was, “this is new…, really new.”
Yes, new – and bizarre.


Alas, the L.A. Times found scholars (deemed otherwise to be critical of the Bush Administration) to suggest a motive. Professor Greg Gause (Vermont) was quoted (perhaps out of context – I wonder) as follows:

“The goal of the Iranians is to be the dominant player in Iraq after the Americans have gone. By getting us out, and with enough ties to people who will be in power, they are guaranteeing their role.”

I’ve raised similar suggestions here before, but I think it’s quite the stretch to see Iran as consciously providing arms or training to the very groups most devoted to fighting against Shia Iraqis.
In this instance, Juan Cole’s assessment from earlier today, for me, is “spot on:”

Since the Sunni guerrillas are killing and blowing up Shiites every day, and since Iran is closely allied with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its Badr Corps paramilitary, the leaders of which have repeatedly been targeted by Sunni guerrillas. That Iran is trying to kill its own guys in Iraq is flatly implausible. Caldwell can come out and say it every day, and I will come out here and say it is implausible every day. Anti-Iranian sentiments are a key characteristic of the Sunni Arab guerrillas.
Iranian arms may be being smuggled into Iraq, but it is unlikely that the government is doing the smuggling, or that they are more important than all the other arms that are being smuggled into Iraq from a variety of neighbors. So the US military might well find Sunni guerrillas with Iranian arms.
We also know that some Sunni guerrillas want to foment a war between the US and Iran. So captured Sunni guerrillas may be feeding interrogators this line that they are getting help from Iran, to make trouble. That is, whatever the US military is finding in the way of evidence for this absurd allegation can be explained in some other plausible way, so as to avoid our having to come to conclusions that make no sense whatsoever.

Cole also hoped that the journalists covering these allegations would give them the “profound skepticism they deserve.” Alas, I’m afraid that too may be “wishful thinking.”

22 thoughts on “When all else fails in Iraq,…”

  1. Ooops,I somehow turned “off” the “accept comments” button when I first posted this… Sorry. Have at it.
    I’ll start of by noting that Iranian spokesmen, as before, deny all such allegations. In turn though, we have had several reports that the Iranian diplomat who was just released in Iraq claims he was tortured during his “detention” – and that an American official was present. Western journalists and a Red Cross representative are confirming recent scars on his body, though they cannot ascertain the source of the marks.
    And of course, the US asserts that such allegations by Iran are “rediculous” and that the US “does not torture.”
    So glad we cleared that up.

  2. I just had to share a comment by WAR IN CONTEXT blogger:
    “So what’s the U.S. military up to now? Attempting to give the insurgents and Iran false confidence by cunningly reinforcing the impression that the Americans are clueless?”

  3. I would say that Iran arming Sunni groups is no more implausible than Saddam being buddies with bin Laden.
    Or Iraq being able to attack and harm the USA.
    (of course, these two could have changed (or may still change) since the invasion and occupation of Iraq. all those high level explosives that were looted after US troops broke the UN seal have still yet to be used. Somebody’s got them……)

  4. Very nice Susan. I was hoping somebody might remember that it was barely 3 weeks ago when the GAO released what I termed the “POGO Theory” on the link between those looted munitions and IED’s….
    https://vintage.justworldnews.org/archives/002446.html
    Near the end, I wrote:
    “Remember this report next time you learn of a breathless claim that Iranian origin components are somehow the root of the road mines that are “killing Americans.”
    We didn’t have to wait too long, now, did we?

  5. It occurs to me that the string of bombings in the Iraqi Parliament and across North Africa might, for a time, be attributed to al-Qaeda types….
    But with my cynical hat on, watch somebody somewhere try to blame them on Iran too….

  6. No, we didn’t have to wait too long.
    This whole damn situation would be hysterically funny – IF ONLY PEOPLE WERE NOT BEING KILLED AND HURT.
    If we could have created a separate reality for bush and cheney and wolfowitz and rumsfled and ladeen and perle and the rest of the blood suckers, and let them have at it – it would have been hysterical.
    Tragically, it is reality.

  7. Simple solution.
    Wait patiently for 2009 January to roll by.
    Till then listen to the lies, laugh out loud (LOL), and pray the idiots making these specious claims don’t stick around after Jan 2009.
    We are a nation of morons, first for allowing this to happen after vowing the lessons of Nam and Watergate had made us a better people.
    Secondly for voting these skunks back into power second time around.
    When you live with skunks, you stink like skunks!

  8. “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”
    Samuel P. Huntington:

  9. Iran is shaping up to be the alibi when the surge doesn’t pan out.
    As they used to say back in the good old days(2003): Real Men Want To March On Tehran.
    They still do, in fact. Except for Gates at the Pentagon, who’s being a wuss about Iran because’s he’s listening to too much straight talk from the military.
    But don’t worry. Bush’s new War Czar (Bolton? Abrams? Lieberman?) can take Gates out of the loop and leave him marginalized, just as Cheney and the late lamented Rummy marginalized Powell before the invasion of Iraq.
    I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot about the “rugged Zagros Mountains” (cw Vietnam’s “rugged Central Highlands”) in the near future…

  10. With regard to the humiliating reports of the pathetic solicitation for a “War Czar” (i.e., competent commander-in-chief) by the Dick Cheney Shogunate Regency, I just couldn’t pass up the grotesque image of a scapegoat on horseback crossing the Potomac to rescue America from its own rabid Republican rulers — and at their own invitation, no less. Hence:
    “A Scapegoat on Horseback”
    The call has gone out for a Caesar to come
    And rescue the fortunes of Dubya the Dumb
    Whom even the dimwits consider too numb
    To make the distinction between “to” and “from”
    The Russians say “Czar” as their choice for the name;
    The Germans say “Kaiser” and mean just the same;
    But when the Republicans fail at the game
    They call for a scapegoat to take all the blame
    But soldiers on horseback with legions in train
    Have never much cared for the fools they disdain
    And rather than serve at the whims of the vain
    Prefer to dispense with Democracy’s pain
    So crossing the Rubicon on his way home
    Means only that Caesar wants no more to roam
    The Empire for Dubya: an ignorant gnome.
    So much for the former Republic of Rome
    Yet given as bad as our generals are
    Who’ve taken four years to get not very far
    Even they know they’ve f*cked up the Baghdad Bazaar
    And would rather retire than pick up a fifth star
    For what would it mean to “command” a defeat
    That Dick Cheney runs from behind a boy’s seat
    Resulting in only more piles of dead meat
    With some luckless scapegoat to take all the heat?
    The screwing of pooches demands a rude touch
    And making soup sandwiches doesn’t say much
    In favor of those who shift gears in the clutch
    And look for some dupe to employ as a crutch
    A scapegoat on horseback! Try thinking of that!
    Who’ll cross the Potomac to fry in the fat?
    And all so that chicken hawks blind as a bat
    Can stuff their fat faces like Garfield the cat
    It doesn’t look good for the oxygen thief:
    A waste of good skin; a commander in brief
    Who now once again demands free-lunch relief
    For what he has done to cause all so much grief
    Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2007

  17. now that the wheels are falling off the failed Iraq occupation–as a moral and prescient, but ideologically “responsible,” case against the war. The instrumentalist critique of America’s wars in the Muslim world avoids some central questions, such as: What gives the American-led coalition of industrialized countries that make up the heart of NATO the right to rule the world? Exactly what is the West’s real agenda? What are the real human costs of its free-market economic nostrums and military aggression?
    Empire Fall
    by CHRISTIAN PARENTI
    [from the March 12, 2007 issue]

  19. When all else fails in Iraq,…
    That will be that. Really MILITANT Republican Party extremists don’t have any “Plan B” about their botched neo-Iraq, and they despise all “Plan-B”-ism in general. Listen to their very own Bonny Prince Charlie, the Young Chevalier of GOP Invasionism explain everything to us calmly and patiently and without ever raising his voice at
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/us/politics/15mccain-transcript.html >>
    or better, listen to the audio equivalent that I can’t seem to link to, in which all the impertinent l*b*r*l questions are omitted, and the Flyboy Hero expounds his better-than-Crawfordite invasionite policy altogether unobstructed.
    Working merely from the transcript, how about this?
    Q. . . . Given that you are also uncertain of the surge . . . doesn’t it makes sense to start thinking about some Plan B? In other words, if you come into the White House and the surge has not worked . . .
    A. Oh, obviously. We will know if it’s not working or working. We will know within months. I don’t know how many months, but within months we will know. Then, if it’s apparent that it is failing, then I would — obviously, you would have to seriously consider what the options are. So far every expert who I have talked to knows of no good option — now some may be less bad than others — but knows of no good option.
    ===
    To comment upon so perspicuous an account of Big Management Party policy were superfluous.
    Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.

  20. That the Dick Cheney Shogunate Regency has no “Plan B” for Iraq doesn’t necessarily surprise us when we recall that we’ve never seen evidence of a “Plan A,” either. Nor should we presume for a moment that the ditzy dauphin, Deputy Dubya, could articulate one even if it existed, let alone carry it out to completion. George Orwell had a great label for this recurrent pathological phenomon: “Catastrophic Gradualism.”
    Anyway, in tribute to the passing of my hero, Kurt Vonnegut — and following a suggestion by Helena that I put my vitriolic verse on an easily-accessible web log — I’ve dumped the last few days output: namely,
    “Woeful World,” “A Disowned Heir Transparent,” “Flailing Flounders Fail Again,” “Boobie Vindication by the Venal,” and “Up Yours, John McCain!” (as well as the above “Scapegoat on Horseback”) at …
    http://www.themisfortuneteller.blogspot.com
    At any rate, James Carroll nailed this whole solipsistic siren song years ago when he wrote a column in the Boston Globe entitled “One Year Later” (March 16, 2004):
    “The repetition of falsehoods tied to the war on terrorism and the war against Iraq has eroded the American capacity, if not to tell the difference between what is true and what is a lie, then to think the difference matters much. The administration distorted fact ahead of the invasion, when the American people could not refute what had not happened yet. And the administration distorts fact now, when the American people do not remember clearly what they were told a year ago. That President Bush retains the confidence of a sizeable proportion of the electorate suggests that Americans don’t particularly worry anymore about truth as a guiding principle of government” [emphasis mine].
    How I wish I could put that succinct sentiment into poetry — three years and three hundred thousand needless and pointless deaths later.

  21. Helena,
    Please did you done some thing, each time I try to post with more than one link in my post, give this massag,
    Thank you for commenting.
    Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog owner.
    Can you help to resolve this problem?
    Thanks

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