WSJ: The Iranian Hand : Regime Change in Tehran is necessary for peace

[NewHampshireDem]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004959

Much is being made about the irony of an Iranian envoy arriving in Iraq to help negotiate a solution to the U.S. standoff with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. How could we allow a charter member of President Bush's "Axis of Evil" to negotiate a "peace" with the thuggish Sadr and his band of fanatical militants?

Indeed, the irony is as thick as Sadr's own beard. But the fact that Iran holds sway over him and other Shiite militants in Iraq should surprise no one. Despite repeated denials by the State Department, it is an open secret throughout the Middle East that Sadr has been receiving support--if not precise orders--from the mullahs in Iran for some time now.

<snip>

That the war being waged by Shiite militants throughout Iraq is not just a domestic "insurgency" has been documented by the Italian Military Intelligence Service (Sismi). In a report prepared before the current wave of violence, Sismi predicted "a simultaneous attack by Saddam loyalists" all over the country, along with a series of Shiite revolts.
The Italians knew that these actions were not just part of an Iraqi civil war, nor a response to recent actions taken by the Coalition Provisional Authority against the forces of Sadr. According to Italian intelligence, the actions were used as a pretext by local leaders of the factions tied to an Iran-based ayatollah, Kazem al-Haeri, who was "guided in his political and strategic choices by ultraconservative Iranian ayatollahs in order to unleash a long planned general revolt." The strategic goal of this revolt, says Sismi, was "the establishment of an Islamic government of Khomeinist inspiration." The Italian intelligence agency noted that "the presence of Iranian agents of influence and military instructors has been reported for some time." Our own government will not say as much publicly, but Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, have recently spoken of "unhelpful actions" by Iran (and Syria).

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<make sure you click on "Read the Responses" on the upper right hand side when you are done ... it's like Freeperville!>

[bluestateguy]

1. More drivel from the think tanks

These neocon people sit in their air conditioned offices in their think tanks, pecking away at their keyboards expounding bullshit theories of US world domination that have little connection to reality or the horrors of war.

[Wright Patman]

2. They keep hoping

for a "civil war" to break out between Sunni and Shia so they can say, "See, we can never leave now because we have to keep the Hatfields and McCoys from each others's throats."

In fact, all I see happening is Sunnis and Shias working together in almost unprecedented fashion against the occupiers. * is a uniter, after all.

[Sinistrous]

3. The author, Michael Ledeen, has long advocated war with Iran and Syria.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15860


Home » War on Iraq »

Who is Michael Ledeen?

By William O. Beeman, Pacific News Service
May 8, 2003

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Ledeen's ideas are repeated daily by such figures as Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. His views virtually define the stark departure from American foreign policy philosophy that existed before the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. He basically believes that violence in the service of the spread of democracy is America's manifest destiny. Consequently, he has become the philosophical legitimator of the American occupation of Iraq.

Now Michael Ledeen is calling for regime change beyond Iraq. In an address entitled "Time to Focus on Iran – The Mother of Modern Terrorism," for the policy forum of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) on April 30, he declared, "the time for diplomacy is at an end; it is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon."

With a group of other conservatives, Ledeen recently set up the Center for Democracy in Iran (CDI), an action group focusing on producing regime change in Iran.

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(Irrelevant personal note: This is my 1000th post.)

[hadrons]

4. and Michael Ledeen will be on the front line of course ....

:eyes: