[font=verdana, arial, helvetica]by Juan Cole
05.08.2005
"The bizarre report by Jim Miklaszewski of NBC news that US military sources are saying Iran is the source of more sophisticated bombs used by Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq seems so unbelievable because it is. Poor Jim is the victim of a high-level Department of Defense black psy-ops operation (or perhaps such an operation has been supplied by a sub-contractor). You wonder if it is Doug Feith’s parting gift to the American people-- laying the groundwork for a war with Iran.
This is the give-away sentence:
“Intelligence officials believe the high-explosives were shipped into Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary guard or the terrorist group Hezbollah, but are convinced it could not have happened without the full consent of the Iranian government.”
Earlier in the article it was alleged that the supposedly captured shipment came from northeastern Iran. Yet by this later paragraph, the US military intelligence guys can’t tell whether it came from the west or the east, or whether it came from Iran or Hizbullah. But if you don’t know whether something comes from Lebanon or Iran, then you really don’t know where it came from at all, do you? Lebanon and Iran are not like each other. One speaks Persian, the other Arabic. Why, they aren’t even close to one another.
Let’s look at a map.
(map here: http://www.juancole.com/graphics/mideast.jpg)
Do you notice how Hizbullah (Hezbollah), which is Shiite, is in southern Lebanon, way over in the west of the map, on the Mediterranean? Do you notice how northeastern Iran (also Shiite) is way over to the east of the map, near the Caspian sea? Do you notice how there isn’t any way to get from Lebanon to Iran except through Syria and then Turkey? Do you notice how there isn’t any way to get from Lebanon to Iraq except via Syria or Syria-and-Jordan? (You could fly, but if the Lebanese government is permitting air transport of 500 pound bombs out of Beirut, we have other problems than just some Iraqi arms smuggling).
Do you notice how there are 250,000 tons of missing munitions in Iraq, such that it is not necessary for the Baath military intelligence to import very many from elsewhere?
Do you notice how the US military has not captured any Lebanese Hizbullah in the company of Sunni guerrillas in Iraq? Do you notice how only the Baathist ex-Minister of the Interior, Falah al-Naqib, an appointee of CIA asset Iyad Allawi, ever alleged that he had captured Lebanese Hizbullah in Iraq? (Do you notice how Allawi’s Minister of Defense, Baathist Hazem Shaalan, charged that Iran was Iraq’s number one enemy when he was briefly in power last year?)
Do you notice how there are two, count them, two, Iraqi organizations called “Hezbollah” (which just means “party of God”) and how Americans frequently are confused and think these are the Lebanese party, which they are not?
Do you notice how the US military has not captured any Iranians in the Sunni Arab provinces of Anbar, Salahuddin, etc.? (Occasionally Iranian pilgrims have been captured in Shiite areas, where they threw in with Shiite militants.)
Do you notice how the US military has captured lots of Sunni Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians, Sudanese, etc.?
Do you notice how the Sunni guerrillas talk nasty about the Shiites and blow them up and slit their throats? Do you notice how some people are depending on you not to know that radical Shiites and extremist Sunnis don’t like each other?
Do you notice how the elected (Shiite) Iraqi government that the guerrillas are trying to kill has excellent relations with (Shiite) Iran?
Do you notice how some regional forces wanted US wars against both Iraq and Iran and are probably unhappy that they are only going to get one bonbon, not two?
Do you notice how some regional forces may have intelligence officers in northern Iraq that would be in a good position to pass disinformation to the clueless (or overly eager) Americans?
Do you notice how the story of Iranian agents coming in through Kurdistan looks a lot like the story the FBI had accused spy Larry Franklin feed AIPAC to see if they would run off to the Israeli embassy with it? Is it a counter-sting?
Do you notice how a cabal of plotters, including Franklin, Michael Ledeen, Harold Rhode, and the Italian Defense Department and military intelligence met with “the Iranian Chalabi,” fraudster and Iran-Contra figure Manuchehr Ghorbanifar, in an attempt to torpedo better relations between Iran and the United States?
Be afraid when you begin to see US government agencies themselves handing out this highly suspect sort of information to major news networks. It means that the sting on the American people has moved from the smoke-filled back rooms to some higher operational level.
Or maybe trial balloons are being floated to see how gullible we are."