If some Iranians are now really providing weapons to the Taliban, five years after the U.S. joined the Iranian government in fighting them, who did provide the Taliban with weapons between late 2001 and early 2007?
Thousands of RPGs, millions of AK47 rounds and tons of explosives have been used against the U.S. military in Afghanistan in the last years. Nobody claims that Iran provided these. So what country did? Why isn’t it threatened?
Oh – nevermind – the U.S. media will not ask these questions.
At least not while there is some "irrefutable evidence" that the blame for the U.S. defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan can be used to "wack", i.e. kill, Iranians and to grab their oil:
The United States has "irrefutable evidence" that Tehran is transferring arms to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, a top U.S. diplomat told CNN Wednesday, noting that NATO forces have intercepted some of the arms shipments.
"There’s irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this and it’s a pattern of activity," U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN.
CNN, June 13, 2007
Haven’t we heard this before?
[A]ccording to an administration official familiar with briefings the CIA has given President Bush, the Agency has "irrefutable evidence" that the Iraqi regime paid Zawahiri $300,000 in 1998, around the time his Islamic Jihad was merging with al Qaeda.
"It’s a lock," says this source.
Weekly Standard, 09/01/2003
I believe that Iraq is now in further material breach of its obligations. I believe this conclusion is irrefutable and undeniable.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell To The United Nations Security Council, February 5, 2003
Speaking to a group of Wyoming Republicans in September [2002], Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States now had "irrefutable evidence" – thousands of tubes made of high-strength aluminum, tubes that the Bush administration said were destined for clandestine Iraqi uranium centrifuges, before some were seized at the behest of the United States.
NYT
Some "irrefutable evidence" …
Though this time even a few official folks seem to have a different view.
Two days ago the top NATO General on the ground in Afghanistan, who certainly knows a bit about the issue, was not convinced:
McNeill, a 60-year-old, four-star general from North Carolina who has fought in most American conflicts since Vietnam, said he had no hard evidence the Iranian government has helped the Taliban. He said munitions, particularly mortar rounds found on Afghan battlefields, "clearly were made in Iran,” but said that does not prove the Iranian government is formally involved.
"If I had the information, I would have no reservation about saying it,” he said.
Just yesterday McCormack, the spokesman of the Department of State, said:
Now the one final linkage that I’m not sure anybody has made, and I don’t think I could at this point, is what exactly is the active involvement of the Iranian Government in those arms moving into Afghanistan.
So what does Burns know that McNeill and McCormack don’t know? Cheney’s direct line number?
Aside form all of this kabuki – selling weapons to a war party is hardly a causus belli.
When the U.S. openly provided weapons to the Taliban to fight Russians in Afghanistan, did Russia threaten to bomb the United States?
Did the U.S. threaten China for helping the Viet Cong?
Does Hamas threaten the U.S. because it finances and trains Fatah’s thugs?
No. So why should Iranian weapons sold somewhere matter at all?