The LAT article is from 2007, not 2006. That's okay, I keep forgetting to change the digit, too.

Posted by: Pyrrho | Jan 25 2007 19:50 utc | 1

thanks Phyrro - corrected ...

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 20:13 utc | 2

PRESENTATION: A pitch or a description of a proposed advertising campaign. [from an advertising glossary]

Posted by: b real | Jan 25 2007 20:17 utc | 3

AFPC LAUNCHES AD CAMPAIGN ON IRAN

Today, the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) begins a week-long advertising campaign aimed at educating the American public about the growing threat posed by a nuclear Iran. The ad campaign consists of two 30-second spots that began running Tuesday on CNN, MSNBC, Headline News and the Fox News Channel in Washington, DC, Maryland and northern Virginia.

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 20:50 utc | 4

Iran will never be attacked in the current WOT. I 100% guarantee it. Iraq is the UK/US prize that the Neo's want, they've lost it already and we are on a damp squib/lame duck towards November 2008.

Ohhhhhhhh, and watch the Economy.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jan 25 2007 20:57 utc | 5

The campaign for war on Iran is REALLY picking up speed now.

Newsweek: Deadly Triggers - Is Iran providing devices that help insurgents detonate IEDs in Iraq?

Recent reports from U.S. intelligence agencies show that Iranian agents or brokers have ordered the devices in bulk from manufacturers in the Far East, said one U.S. counterterrorism official, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters. Bruce Riedel, a senior intelligence official who retired from the CIA only two months ago, told NEWSWEEK he too was aware of reports that serial numbers of sensors retrieved from IEDs in Iraq have been traced to orders from Iran placed with infrared-sensor manufacturers in Taiwan and Japan.

Oh - a senior intelligence official, two month into retirement, is talking about CIA stuff (revealing sources and methods!!!) under his full name?

A current counterterrorism official says that bombmaking videos believed to have been prepared in Iran have been recovered from insurgents in Iraq.
...
U.S. officials say they believe the supply of equipment and components to insurgents inside Iraq is being arranged in Iran by the Al-Quds brigades. This group is an offshoot of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a national militia organization charged with protecting Iran’s theocratic government from counterrevolutionary forces. The corps is believed to operate under the direct authority of Iran’s outspoken and controversial president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who himself originally rose to prominence as a member of the organization.
...
In testimony last week before the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA Director Michael Hayden focused in particular on the presence of the explosive formed projectiles. "They are being used against our forces. They are capable of defeating some of our heaviest armor, and incident for incident cause significantly more casualties than any other improvised explosive devices do, and they are provided to Shia militia."

But if there is a video of how to MAKE these shaped charges, why should one PROVIDE such charges. Any half-decent metal shop can put copper into a conical shape. (Thanks to a year of shipyard internship, I wouldn't even need a video for that ...)

...
Nevertheless, intelligence officials contacted by NEWSWEEK insist that Iranian interference in Iraq appears significant. U.S. intelligence officials say they are aware of staging points—sometimes upgraded in unofficial accounts to "training camps"—in Iran, Syria and Lebanon that are used by insurgents traveling in and out of Iraq. Intelligence agencies believe that supplies, such as the sensors, are shipped from these locations.
...
U.S. officials note that all the major Iraqi Shiite parties, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s, have strong historical ties to Iran; some of the groups even operated from Tehran during Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.

Everyone but al-Sadr that is ...

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 21:05 utc | 6

Holy shit, b, are you implying that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq might not be the ideal party for maintaining American interests in the region, especially as regards Iran?

I did not see that coming.

Posted by: Rowan | Jan 25 2007 21:25 utc | 7

Holy shit, b, are you implying that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq might not be the ideal party for maintaining American interests in the region, especially as regards Iran?

I never would do so - since Bush has looked into Hakim's deep eyes, he knows there is a real soul ... I would never the decider on this ...

Posted by: b | Jan 25 2007 21:30 utc | 8

Nice one b.

Posted by: beq | Jan 25 2007 23:24 utc | 9

Note the "proof" source for the statement by the AFPC that Iran "supported attacks that have killed hundreds of Americans."

“Iran Responsible for 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing, Judge Rules,” CNN.com, May 30, 2003

1983?! That incident has absolutely nothing to do with the current situation, government, or anything. If they had any real, current evidence, wouldn't they cite that instead? hmm...

Posted by: Chemmett | Jan 26 2007 0:29 utc | 10

I agree w/beq here, damn fine post b..

Perhaps, it also has to do with the masses suffering from, 'focal retrograde amnesia' induced from 24/7 prop-agenda.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 26 2007 2:05 utc | 11

Iran Set to Try Space Launch

Iran has converted its most powerful ballistic missile into a satellite launch vehicle. The 30-ton rocket could also be a wolf in sheep's clothing for testing longer-range missile strike technologies, Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine reports in its Jan. 29 issue.

The Iranian space launcher has recently been assembled and "will liftoff soon" with an Iranian satellite, according to Alaoddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

The move toward an independent space launch capacity is likely to ratchet up concern in the U.S. and Europe about Iran's strategic capabilities and intents. Orbiting its own satellite would send a powerful message throughout the Muslim world about the Shiite regime in Tehran.

U.S. agencies believe the launcher to be a derivation of the 800-1,000-mi. range Shahab 3 missile. A Shahab 3 fired from central Iran could strike anywhere in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the entire Persian Gulf region and as far west as southern Turkey.

How dare they! Don't they realize that we want them to remain a 3rd world country??

Posted by: the Ghost of Saddam Hussein | Jan 26 2007 2:35 utc | 12

One has to wonder how long a military elite that can produce analyses like this
devastating indictment will be willing to prosecute Bush's war, rather than just prosecuting Bush. Furthermore, another retired general, Wesley Clark seems to be trying to up the ante with regard to what is permissible in U.S. political debate.

The relative weight of the Likud-Kash-Beitanou lobby with respect to Petroleum PACs in the formulation of what passes for U.S. Middle East policy is debatable, and indeed is debated here. Nevertheless, with regard to the seeming run-up to war with Iran now in progress, except for
Bush and Cheney themselves, I find it difficult to discern a trace of the latter while the former is all but screaming from the rafters. The bomb-Iran lobby in all its panoply marches through the media outlets with a sense of righteous zeal that can well be compared to the Ku Klux Klan's lamentable 1928 march down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Posted by: Hannah K. O'Luthon | Jan 26 2007 8:39 utc | 13

Lunatics:
Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq

The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.

For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries.
...
The new "kill or capture" program was authorized by President Bush in a meeting of his most senior advisers last fall, along with other measures meant to curtail Iranian influence from Kabul to Beirut and, ultimately, to shake Iran's commitment to its nuclear efforts.
...
The administration's plans contain five "theaters of interest," as one senior official put it, with military, intelligence, political and diplomatic strategies designed to target Iranian interests across the Middle East.

The White House has authorized a widening of what is known inside the intelligence community as the "Blue Game Matrix" -- a list of approved operations that can be carried out against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. And U.S. officials are preparing international sanctions against Tehran for holding several dozen al-Qaeda fighters who fled across the Afghan border in late 2001. They plan more aggressive moves to disrupt Tehran's funding of the radical Palestinian group Hamas and to undermine Iranian interests among Shiites in western Afghanistan.

In Iraq, U.S. troops now have the authority to target any member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as well as officers of its intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias. The policy does not extend to Iranian civilians or diplomats. Though U.S. forces are not known to have used lethal force against any Iranian to date, Bush administration officials have been urging top military commanders to exercise the authority.
...
The decision to use lethal force against Iranians inside Iraq began taking shape last summer, when Israel was at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Officials said a group of senior Bush administration officials who regularly attend the highest-level counterterrorism meetings agreed that the conflict provided an opening to portray Iran as a nuclear-ambitious link between al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the death squads in Iraq.

Among those involved in the discussions, beginning in August, were deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, NSC counterterrorism adviser Juan Zarate, the head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, representatives from the Pentagon and the vice president's office, and outgoing State Department counterterrorism chief Henry A. Crumpton.
...
Crumpton flew from Washington to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa for a meeting with Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East. A principal reason for the visit, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the discussion, was to press Abizaid to prepare for an aggressive campaign against Iranian intelligence and military operatives inside Iraq.
...
A senior intelligence officer was more wary of the ambitions of the strategy.

"This has little to do with Iraq. It's all about pushing Iran's buttons. It is purely political," the official said. The official expressed similar views about other new efforts aimed at Iran, suggesting that the United States is escalating toward an unnecessary conflict to shift attention away from Iraq and to blame Iran for the United States' increasing inability to stanch the violence there.

But some officials within the Bush administration say that targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, and specifically a Guard unit known as the Quds Force, should be as much a priority as fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. ..
...
In interviews, two senior administration officials separately compared the Tehran government to the Nazis and the Guard to the "SS." They also referred to Guard members as "terrorists." Such a formal designation could turn Iran's military into a target of what Bush calls a "war on terror," with its members potentially held as enemy combatants or in secret CIA detention.

Posted by: b | Jan 26 2007 8:43 utc | 14

Tehran's Influence Grows As Iraqis See Advantages

The increasingly common arrangement for sick or wounded Iraqis to receive treatment in Iran is just one strand in a burgeoning relationship between these two Persian Gulf countries. Thousands of Iranian pilgrims visit the Shiite holy cities in southern Iraq each year. Iran exports electricity and refined oil products to Iraq, and Iraqi vendors sell Iranian-made cars, air coolers, plastics and the black flags, decorated with colorful script, that Shiites are flying this week to celebrate the religious holiday of Ashura.
...
"We will not allow hegemony of a hostile regime to have power over this area," U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said this week.
...
Each day, Iran provides 1,000 tons of cooking gas, about 20 percent of the Iraqi demand, and 2 million liters of kerosene. Iran exports electricity through Iraq's Diyala province and plans to quadruple the amount with new projects, Iraqi officials say.

Iran has also extended a $1 billion line of credit to Iraq to help fund reconstruction and rebuilding. When Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and his delegation of ministers visited Iran in November, he asked for more help and said Iraq "would like to expand our relations in every field with the Islamic Republic of Iran."
...
Mariam Rayis, a foreign affairs adviser to Maliki, dismissed as paranoia U.S. assertions about Iran's "dark involvement" in Iraq. "These neighbors can help us for a while until we can have new construction here," she said. "We have noticed that there is moral support from Iran."

Posted by: b | Jan 26 2007 8:49 utc | 15

Chris Floyd on Bush's orders to kill Iranian "agents": Death and Dishonor: Bush's New Assassination Order

If Iran is not arming their bloodsworn enemies, the Sunni insurgents, and if any Shiite group they are assisting is an integral part of the "sovereign" Iraqi government backed by the Bush Administration, then what on earth can be the purpose of a direct presidential order to the troops to kill Iranians in Iraq? The answer is simple: the purpose of the order is to provoke Iran into some action that can be trumpeted as a casus belli for the Bush Faction's long-planned war against Iran.

What Bush has done with this order is to turn the American military into his own private death squad. It is an act of breathtaking dishonor, of unspeakable moral filth. That this pathetic little man and the jumped-up thugs around him – especially the hulking, smirking, lying coward Dick Cheney – are allowed to show their faces among civilized people, much less exercise power over a mighty nation, remains an unfathomable mystery...and a source of deep shame for all Americans.

Posted by: b | Jan 26 2007 15:08 utc | 16

Major WaPO article this morning on the administration's escalation against Iran in Iraq

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 15:32 utc | 17

Oops - re- posting:

Major WaPO article this morning on the administration's escalation against Iran in Iraq

Toops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq

~Snip

The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war.

Senior administration officials said the policy is based on the theory that Tehran will back down from its nuclear ambitions if the United States hits it hard in Iraq and elsewhere, creating a sense of vulnerability among Iranian leaders. But if Iran responds with escalation, it has the means to put U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Officials said Hayden counseled the president and his advisers to consider a list of potential consequences, including the possibility that the Iranians might seek to retaliate by kidnapping or killing U.S. personnel in Iraq.

Two officials said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, though a supporter of the strategy, is concerned about the potential for errors, as well as the ramifications of a military confrontation between U.S. and Iranian troops on the Iraqi battlefield.

In meetings with Bush's other senior advisers, officials said, Rice insisted that the defense secretary appoint a senior official to personally oversee the program to prevent it from expanding into a full-scale conflict. Rice got the oversight guarantees she sought, though it remains unclear whether senior Pentagon officials must approve targets on a case-by-case basis or whether the oversight is more general.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 15:34 utc | 18

Correct me if I'm wrong, but seeking and killing "Iranian agents" in Iraq is essentially a causus belli, right? It will be only a matter of time until Iran is found to be hunting and killing American agents in Iraq, which will be used as justification for any action.

I don't really see a climbdown from this. It's only a matter of time before those dastardly Polish partisans attack one of "our" radio stations, right?

Posted by: Rowan | Jan 26 2007 15:39 utc | 19

Scanning headlines from around the world on Iran this morning, almost every single one I see has some version of this story:

Iran to Begin Installing Centrifuges Next Month

Right on cue, right on schedule, and in unison. How in the hell do they do this?

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 15:43 utc | 20

It will be only a matter of time until Iran is found to be hunting and killing American agents in Iraq, which will be used as justification for any action.

Yes, I think have about summed it up correctly.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 15:44 utc | 21

bea, because they've all got intrepid reporters like our former barkeep at Davos. Perfect place for spreading rumors to the media from the elites.

Posted by: Rowan | Jan 26 2007 15:53 utc | 22

Raw Story has an excellent expose of the six-year buildup to Confrontation with Iran. Perfect complementary reading to today's WaPO story on killing Iranian agents. This one is important to read in full.

Buildup to Confrontation with Iran

~Snip

The escalation of US military planning on Iran is only the latest chess move in a six-year push within the Bush Administration to attack Iran, a RAW STORY investigation has found.

While Iran was named a part of President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” in 2002, efforts to ignite a confrontation with Iran date back long before the post-9/11 war on terror. Presently, the Administration is trumpeting claims that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than the CIA’s own analysis shows and positing Iranian influence in Iraq’s insurgency, but efforts to destabilize Iran have been conducted covertly for years, often using members of Congress or non-government actors in a way reminiscent of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.

The motivations for an Iran strike were laid out as far back as 1992. In classified defense planning guidance – written for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney by then-Pentagon staffers I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, World Bank Chief Paul Wolfowitz, and ambassador-nominee to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad – Cheney’s aides called for the United States to assume the position of lone superpower and act preemptively to prevent the emergence of even regional competitors. The draft document was leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post and caused an uproar among Democrats and many in George H. W. Bush’s Administration.

Posted by: Bea | Jan 26 2007 17:14 utc | 23

Checking the Google news collection of articles on the authorization reveals some interesting headlines. What word is used by what news organization to describe the action which US troops are allowed to do?

The neutral, or at least most common, version seems to be: Bush OKs Countering Iranians in Iraq

The business magazines and local papers seem to like this one. But the bigger the media organization in America, the more caught up in doublespeak they get. Consider ABC: Bush: US troops may protect selves from Iranians

As though the Iranians were shooting at American troops, but the G.I.s were prevented from shooting back! Wait, that's exactly what the New Pravda's editors say is happening: Bush Allows Force Against Iranian Agents in Iraq

Meanwhile, a few papers are speaking clearly: Report: Us Oks Killing Iranians In Iraq.

Interestingly, the two biggest papers I saw with that headline, the Guardian and the SF Chronicle, both had newer versions using the apparently preferable "Countering" instead of "Killing". the Guardian put up a newer article with the neutered headline; the Chronicle appears to have simply changed it.

Posted by: Rowan | Jan 26 2007 20:08 utc | 24

Iran will never be attacked in the current WOT. I 100% guarantee it - Cloned Poster wrote.

Some arguments that have not been mentioned so far (afaik, haven’t read everything.)

Ahmadinejad supports, defends, the US-backed Iraqi Gvmt. Stability, security, progress. He likes to pretend it is ‘Iraqi’ and sees Bush’s recent surge plans as detrimental to Iraqi advancement and self-determination. (From the mainstream press.) Well. That's the official position.

More importantly, perhaps, he supports fashion-plate Karzai. I have read that stability in Western Afghanistan rests on Iranian influence. (?)

The man is a Democrat!

Posted by: Noirette | Jan 26 2007 20:26 utc | 25