The evidence of Iran’s military involvement in Iraq is growing rapidly as US and Iraqi forces take out the Mahdi Militia fighters. This evidence is bringing the situation between Iran and the US to a head, because the US cannot allow any nation to target its troops without responding with swift and deadly action. Otherwise it is open season on Americans around the world. If we don’t take action when our troops are killed then it means we are too weak-kneed to take action when any American is the target of foreign state aggression.

Michael Gordon of the NY Times notes today the Iran has allowed military training camps to be set up near Tehran where Iraqi militia fighters are trained by Hezbollah trainers (trained by Iranians originally, of course):

Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran, according to American interrogation reports that the United States has supplied to the Iraqi government.

An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.

The United States has long charged that the Iranians were training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran, which Iran has consistently denied, and there have been previous reports about Hezbollah operatives in Iraq.

But the Americans say the reports of Hezbollah’s role at the Iranian camp offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways.

The thing to take away from this snippet is someone is running a military training camp outside Tehran. Here in the US we arrested people for attempting to perform military training using paintball guns (sorry folks, half the network is down from where I am so I cannot provide a link at this time). Does anyone think Tehran would not notice a bunch of armed Iraqis undergoing military training just down the street? Clearly Iran is providing the kind of ‘support’ to Iraq that gets people killed. Iraqis and Americans.

I’m going to come back to this article in a moment because there are some really dense statements that leave you scratching your head if you read more than just the NY Times. For example, if one perused this news article one would find much more evidence of Iran’s deadly role than simply training – we found massive amounts of deadly weapons:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered the formation of a committee to compile evidence of Iranian “interference” in Iraq that will then be presented to Tehran, the government spokesman said on Sunday.

Spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh was speaking a day after a delegation from Iraq’s ruling Shi’ite alliance returned from Tehran after showing Iranian officials evidence of the Islamic Republic’s backing of Shi’ite militias in Iraq.

Dabbagh said Iranian officials who met that delegation had denied any meddling in Iraq.

“The prime minister has ordered the formation of a committee to document the interference of the Iranians in Iraqi affairs. The Iraqi government will follow up with the Iranians and put (these findings) in front of them,” Dabbagh told Reuters.

…

Asked by Reuters what evidence existed so far, Dabbagh said Iranian missiles had been found in the southern city of Basra during a recent crackdown on militias in the southern city.

“The proof we have is weapons which are shown to be made in Iran. We want to trace back how they reached (Iraq), who is using them, where are they getting it,” Dabbagh said.

…

The U.S. military said last week “very, very significant” amounts of Iranian arms had been found in Basra and also Baghdad during an offensive against militiamen loyal to anti-American Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr that began in late March.

Some of those arms were made in 2008, the military said.

Brand new weapons which carry a lot of punch. Would Tehran want these kinds of weapons sprinkled out in sections of that capitol city by people who oppose their regime? Clearly not, so how is it they can pretend that their weapons sprinkled through out Sadr City and shooting at the Iraqi central government complex is not an act of war? Anyone buying the Iranian double speak is simply an idiot. They keep pretending they are innocent while the stab Iraq in the back because (a) they know Iraq cannot launch a counter response without an air force of some kind and (b) a naive belief the US will not use its massive airpower in the region and the world to send a message. It is their naiveté regarding the second part that causes them to play their dangerous game.

 

 

And Iran is meddling with more than just the Shiites and Sadr’s Mahdi thugs. They have been attacking Kurds across the northern border with Iraq. And if one reads this interview with the son of Sadr’s chief Shiite rival, who is stationed in Iran, one finds Iran has contacts with Sunnis as well, which means they are likely to be providing support to al-Qaeda in Iraq as well:

Abdelaziz Hakim, leader of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, or SIIC, and a relatively moderate Shiite leader who is a key player in his country, plays a tricky balancing act, maintaining cordial ties with both the U.S. and Iran at a time of unprecedented international tension between the two longtime rivals.

The troubles came to a boil this weekend as the Iraqi government dispatched a team to Tehran to discuss U.S. allegations that Iran is smuggling weapons to Iraqi militants.

One of Hakim’s sons, Mohsen Hakim, oversees his party’s downtown Tehran office. Over tea and fruit Saturday, the younger Hakim, 34, spoke for half an hour with the Los Angeles Times in an illuminating interview about the troubled relations among Iran, Iraq and the U.S. and how they roil the entire region, from Afghanistan to Lebanon.

…

LAT: How much influence does Iran have on the Mahdi Army?

HAKIM: In fact, I do not how influential Iran is. Yes, we can feel that Iran, given the deep relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran with other groups in Iraq… I can say Iran has effective influences among all ethnic, religious and political factions, even among Sunni Arabs in Iraq. You can see the influences by tracing the trips of leaders from different factions to Iran. Iran’s relations with Iraq is very complicated. It has religious, political, historic and civilizational aspects. The holy sites and all the top sources of emulation are connected to Iran, and it is not limited to one group or army. Bear in mind, from Qaradagh Valley in [the northernmost] Iraqi Kurdistan until estuary or mouth of Faw Peninsula [in southern Iraq], there is an 1,336-kilometer [800-mile] border with Iran.

LAT: So Iran effectively has relations with all factions in Iraq?

HAKIM: Yes with Kurds, Shiites and others.

This acknowledgment that Iran has connections across all the sects and areas in Iraq means Iran could be funding, training and providing weapons to more than just the Shiite Mahdi Army fighters. It could easily be providing the same training to al-Qaeda fighters as well. Iran is the nexus of Islamo Fascism and is willing and capable of setting Muslims against their neighbors to gain power once the bloodbath is over.

OK, now back to the NY Times piece now that we see the big picture where lots of deadly new Iranian weapons are being uncovered in Basra and Baghdad in the possession of the Mahdi thugs, and we see Iranian influence spanning all of Iraq, which means all sorts of destabilizing forces could be using those training facilities outside Tehran. After all this the SurrenderMedia tries to keep its head firmly in the sand, protected from facing facts:

There has been debate among experts about the extent to which Iran is responsible for instability in Iraq.

Providing military training and weapons which result in large numbers of dead Iraqis and Americans is not in doubt anymore. Anyone debating is wasting their time or stalling. When an enemy country like Iran sends trained and armed soldiers to kill our people the debate on the question is over. Then the debate can become how hard to hit Iran. The NY Times piece goes on to add further evidence, as if it is needed at this stage:

The captured men described themselves in the accounts as part of a class of 16 militants who crossed into Iran from southern Iraq and were taken to a camp near Tehran, where they studied in a classroom and in the field. Some had been in Iran several times as part of a program that American officials said was aimed at turning them into “master trainers” and which could last several years.

According to their interrogation reports, the militiamen believed that militants from other countries were also being trained at the camp, an impression based on hearing snippets of conversations in other dialects and languages. But the group was kept separate and was not allowed to mingle with others.

Those would be the al-Qaeda fighters of course – the ones the liberals claim are not being trained and armed by Iran.

An American official said that an Iraqi who facilitated the militiamen’s travel to Iraq was also captured and confessed that he had been paid by an Iranian.

…

Other evidence of Iranian involvement that American officials have provided to Iraqi officials involves details of captured Iranian arms, like 81-millimeter mortars and 107-millimeter rockets that American officials say bear markings indicating that they were made this year. The weapons have a particular type of fuse and are painted in a way that American experts say is unique to Iran.

The Iraqi military also seized Iranian-made weapons with 2008 markings during their offensive last month in the southern port of Basra, according to American officials.

There is no need to debate anymore. We can allow Iraq and Iran one final opportunity to fix this – and that would require exposing all the terrorists Iran trained and armed in Iraq so they can be rounded up and dealt with. But only an act clear and obvious like this would suffice at this stage. Iran has been caught lying to the international community’s face while dealing death behind the scenes. They do not deserve any leniency or good faith or any more time to stall. Take action now or receive some action very soon.