Saturday, August 06, 2005
Iran and Hizbullah arming the Iraq insurgency? Huh?
Please help me understand an article published by the New York Times on August 6.
The lead says:
The article continues:
The same article quotes "American officials" as saying there is no evidence Iranian government is involved. "Middle East specialists" then told the writer of the article that the idea of Iran and Hizbullah (earlier in the article the weapons used against the US army were found similar to those used by Hizbullah against the Israelis) helping the insurgency was nonsensical.
According to the article, American commanders are baffled by how explosives used by shia in Basra against the coalition are migrating to the Sunni areas.
What do we have here? "Porous borders" with Syria and Iran. Insurgents, terrorists, fighters-- whatever you want to call them-- are having a field day infiltrating borders made porous after the so called "liberation" and blowing up soldiers and innocent civilians.
We also have weapons and explosives skipping ethnic and sectarian boundaries. All is fair in war. It is not impossible to come to the conclusion that a few impoverished shia, giving up on the "coalition" promises of a better future, are making handsome profits by selling explosives to their Sunni bretheren. Having lived the Lebanese war, I do not put it past arms dealers. And it's not like the Iraqis are seeing any of the billions of dollars generated from oil sale.
The lead says:
Many of the new, more sophisticated roadside bombs used to attack American and government forces in Iraq have been designed in Iran and shipped in from there, United States military and intelligence officials said Friday, raising the prospect of increased foreign help for Iraqi insurgents.
The article continues:
Unlike the improvised explosive devices devised from Iraq's vast stockpiles of missiles, artillery shells and other arms, the new weapons are specially designed to destroy armored vehicles, military bomb experts say.
The same article quotes "American officials" as saying there is no evidence Iranian government is involved. "Middle East specialists" then told the writer of the article that the idea of Iran and Hizbullah (earlier in the article the weapons used against the US army were found similar to those used by Hizbullah against the Israelis) helping the insurgency was nonsensical.
That makes no sense to me. I will ignore the part in the last quote which is further evidence of how the US administration is shooting itself in the foot by replacing a dictatorship with a theocracy.Iran's protégés are in control in Iraq right now, yet these weapons are going to people fighting Iran's protégés," said Kenneth Katzman, a Persian Gulf expert at the Congressional Research Service and a former Middle East analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.
According to the article, American commanders are baffled by how explosives used by shia in Basra against the coalition are migrating to the Sunni areas.
What do we have here? "Porous borders" with Syria and Iran. Insurgents, terrorists, fighters-- whatever you want to call them-- are having a field day infiltrating borders made porous after the so called "liberation" and blowing up soldiers and innocent civilians.
We also have weapons and explosives skipping ethnic and sectarian boundaries. All is fair in war. It is not impossible to come to the conclusion that a few impoverished shia, giving up on the "coalition" promises of a better future, are making handsome profits by selling explosives to their Sunni bretheren. Having lived the Lebanese war, I do not put it past arms dealers. And it's not like the Iraqis are seeing any of the billions of dollars generated from oil sale.
