Iran Top Threat To Iraq, U.S. Says

[Nitrogenica]

Source: Washington Post

Focus on Al-Qaeda Now Diminishing

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 12, 2008; A01



Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.

Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.

The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.

In congressional hearings this week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said the U.S. military has driven al-Qaeda from Baghdad, Anbar province and central Iraq, and he depicted the group as now largely concentrated in a reduced territory around the northern city of Mosul.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041101606_pf.html

[uppityperson]

1. They sure do let themselves get convinced of things, don't they.

I wonder if they understand cause/effect as it doesn't seem so.

[dipsydoodle]

2. So - does it follow

that blaming al-Qaeda in the first place was just more faulty intelligence ? And if so - maybe this is just even more of the same. At this rate they'll be blaming Castro in a year or so.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Same old bullshit in a different package.

When every thinking, informed human knew for a fact that al Qaeda in Iraq was responsible for only the tiniest fraction of the violence in Iraq (and the rest was from local insurgents), the Bush administration was howling that al Qaeda was responsible: "We must fight al Qaeda in Iraq or we'll be fighting them on Mainstreet, USA!"

Now that David "Chippendale" Petraeus has the media stuffing dollar bills in his g-string and believing every twisted barb he's willing to relate concerning Iraq, the Bush administration can turn their focus to Iran. Luckily, we can count on the media to short-circuit that nonsense. not.

[lyonn]

4. It makes the head spin listening and reading what bush is convinced of

He has wanted to bash Iran from day one,just like Iraq, axis of evil doncha know. At least according to the likes of Clarke, ect.. No one can talk to that creature without losing their job if they disagree with him or cheney. Diplomacy has Never been in this administrations vocabulary. Rice is a joke. So the bushies continue to threaten and poke their enemies in the butt and expect them to bow down?? As McCain says, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran - that was no joke.

[Wizard777]

5. So Once again Al Qaida is clearing the way for a ANOTHER big Bush payday.

No wonder they won't go after Al Qaida. They are making Bush & Cheney too much money.

[benld74]

6. If we attack Iran on the pretext of PROTECTING Iraq, I swear i'm moving the family to Canada.

[struggle4progress]

7. It's just a friendly little game of thimblerig:

I have three shells, labelled Afghan, Pak, and Saudi. And let's put binLaden under one of them. All you have to do is find him. So I swap the shells around -- and here he is under Afghan. Do it again -- here he is under Pak. See? Around and around the three shells go. Where is he? Look under the first shell Iran: not there right now. Look under the second shell Korea: nope, not there either. Let's look under the third shell Iraq. Sure enough, there's Saddam. Now he's hiding again. Around and around go the shells. Look under the first shell Libya: nope, no WMDs there. How about under the second shell Iraq? Nope: so they have to be under the third shell Syria. Around and around: keep your eyes on the shells. Are the WMDs under the first shell Iraq? Nope. The second shell Korea? Nope: that's just a fizzle. So they have to be under the third shell Iran. It's elementary logic: there's no other possibility. I'll take the three trillion now please. Would you like to play again?

[ShockediSay]

8. I remember a clip of McCain wth the Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, bomb bomb

Iran lyrics.

Maverick that he is, who needs more cowboy foreign policy?

[Penance]

9. I'm torn here

On one hand, they are (finally) right that Iran had immense sway over Iraqi politics where al-Qaeda has little. On the other, we all know they want war with Iran in the worst way and will say anything to get it. You'd think their first act to reduce the Iranian threat to Iraq would be to stop *directly supporting* the most pro-Iran elements in Iraq, like the Da'wa Party and the ISCI and their Badr Corps militia.

[2tr4nqued]

10. All options are on the table for dealing with the Bush administration

To my way of thinking, anything an American might do to stop the Bush administration from starting a war with Iran would just be self-defense. Of course the media would paint such things as "assassination" and "terrorism," but in reality, it would just be good old-fashioned self-defense.

[LynnTheDem]

11. That would be

TOTAL BULLSHIT.

[Supersedeas]

12. Al-Caca is being supplanted by Iran as the new rationale for staying for Oil in Iraq

[indypaul]

13. Didn't someone once say

"Now, there you go again."
Looks like the same old "faulty intelligence.
Not the kind you gather and evaluate. The kind
you are supposed to obtain on you father's knee.