Reprinted from THE INTELLECTUAL ACTIVISTMarch 9, 2006
Commentary by Robert Tracinski
"Let the Ball Roll"Iran continues to seek out a confrontation with the US, no matter how hard our leaders try to evade it. Thus, in response to attempts to haul Iran before the UN Security Council--which is likely to issue nothing more than another toothless resolution--Iran is now threatening what the article below calls "broader retaliation."What this means is that, even if the US tries to limit its conflict with Iran to a series of air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities--which I regard as President Bush's likely plan--the Iranians may not leave it at that, initiating a broader conflict by stirring up their proxies in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
Iran's strategy is to raise the costs of US action, in the hope that our leaders will back down to avoid those costs. But if they want a wider war, they've had it coming for a long time, and we ought to give it to them--on our terms, rather than theirs, that is, by going on the offensive. An Iranian spokesman quoted below declares "Let the ball roll." I agree, but I think we should shorten that slogan to: "Let's roll."
"Iran Threatens US with 'Harm and Pain'," George Jahn, AP via New York Sun, March 8, 2006 "Iran threatened the United States with 'harm and pain' Wednesday for its role in hauling Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its disputed nuclear program. 'The United States has the power to cause harm and pain,' Iran said a statement meant for delivery at the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board meeting in Vienna on Iran's refusal to freeze uranium enrichment. 'But the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the US wishes to choose, let the ball roll.'…
[Iran] also threatened broader retaliation, without being specific, saying Iran 'will adapt our policy and adjust our approach to conform with the new exigencies.' France, Germany and Britain, which spearheaded the Feb. 4 IAEA resolution clearing the path for Security Council action, warned that what is known about Iran's enrichment program could represent only 'the tip of the iceberg.' "2. The Ball Is Already RollingThe case for war with Iran ought to be easy to make, because the war is already happening. It's just that Iranians are the only ones fighting it. The ABC news report below exposes Iran's role in arming our enemies in Iraq, concluding that "the Iranian government is knowingly killing US troops."
"Iraq Weapons--Made in Iran?" Brian Ross, Richard Esposito, and Jill Rackmill, ABC News, March 6, 2006 "US military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border…. What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures--certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory. 'The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production,' says explosives expert Kevin Barry. 'So it's the same make and model.'…
Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief…[said,] 'I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing US troops.'… John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Feb. 2, saying, 'Tehran's intention to inflict pain on the United States and Iraq has been constrained by its caution to avoid giving Washington an excuse to attack it.' " 3. Iraq and IndiaHere's a story that indicates why the US is cultivating India as a strategic ally: they are also the target of a Muslim terrorist war. Note in particular a common theme between Muslim terrorist attack in Iraq and those in India: an attempt to use bombings to spur sectarian civil war--a prospect that is,
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