Obsessed With Iran ( WHAT?? ...Lost touch with Reality)

Washington Post ^ | May 28, 2004 | Jim Hoagland

[nuconvert]

Obsessed With Iran

By Jim Hoagland

Washington Post

Friday, May 28, 2004

George Shultz says that life in official Washington is not one damn thing after another. It is the same damn thing over and over again. A sudden lurch by the Bush administration to using Iraq's Sunnis to contain Iran's Shiite rulers shows that the former secretary of state is on to something, again.

Bush policymakers and spies have made fear of Iran a driving -- and highly distorting -- force in the continuing war in Iraq. They now resemble the LBJ-era Cold Warriors who were so intent on defeating China and the Soviet Union in Vietnam that they lost sight of the stakes and dynamics of the real war they were fighting.

In Iraq today the CIA is building an Iraqi spy agency from the ruins of Saddam Hussein's Mukhabarat -- the secret police unit that was at war with Iran and Syria for two decades. Like ex-Nazis recruited to fight the Soviet peril, these Iraqis come with useful skills and experience in trying to destabilize Tehran. Some of them were on the job during the Iran-Iraq war, when the Reagan administration (in which Shultz served) shared U.S. intelligence with Hussein's regime to prevent the revolutionary ayatollahs of Iran from taking Baghdad. Old intelligence connections die hard.

But the inordinate fear of Iran is rapidly contaminating U.S. relations with the Shiite majority of Iraq. It is also complicating U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi's effort to name an interim Iraqi government. The White House hopes to get the government named and a new Security Council resolution on Iraq approved before President Bush goes to Europe next week.

[nuconvert]

"Bush policymakers and spies have made fear of Iran a driving -- and highly distorting -- force in the continuing war in Iraq."

HUH?? They have?

"the inordinate fear of Iran" ??? What Planet is Hoagland on???

[gilliam]

Bush is like the Engergizer Bunny... he keeps going and going and going....

Drives the anti WOT folks nuts!

[nuconvert]

Mr. Hoagland doesn't read much, I guess.
He's missed the almost daily threats coming from Iran.
Here's one he apparently missed : "Iranian official
threatens U.S."
"Suicide, missile attacks are ready
'to strike at Anglo-Saxon culture' "

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1143623/posts?page=29#29

Guess they're just joking, eh Mr. Hoagland?

[meenie]

Must have been the United States, Planet Earth. It was just yesterday the US was concerned about Chalibi giving intelligence to the Iranians.

[samtheman]

Was this piece originally written in Arabic or Farsi? I wonder how much the Washington Compost pays to get it's "news" and opinions translated into English. (Just curious.)

[nuconvert]

"A driving and HIGHLY DISTORTING force..."?
Hello??? I'd say the article on Iran recruiting thousands of potential suicide bombers to go to Iraq to disrupt our efforts there isn't being publicized or taken seriously enough. I don't think anyone's distorting anything EXCEPT Mr. Hoagland.

[nuconvert]

Here's part of a conversation I had with someone today....

Me : "Did you read that editorial on Iran, from the Washington Post today?"

Him: "Well, I started to, but it sounded demented, so I stopped."

There ya go!

[nuconvert]

Warped.....PonG

[weegee]

"Bush policymakers and spies have made fear of Iran a driving -- and highly distorting -- force in the continuing war in Iraq."

And this is just more BUSH spin???

Iranian Official Threatens U.S.

An official of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has threatened the United States and other Western nations with suicide and missile attacks aimed at 29 sensitive sites.

"Our missiles are now ready to strike at their civilization, and as soon as the instructions arrive from leader ['Ali Khamenei], we will launch our missiles at their cities and installations," the Revolutionary Guard adviser said in a speech reported by the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, according to Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI.

He also threatened to "take over" Britian.

[GOPJ]

Aren't they also hiding Osama and his gang?

"Our missiles are now ready to strike at their civilization, and as soon as the instructions arrive from leader ['Ali Khamenei], we will launch our missiles at their cities and installations," the Revolutionary Guard adviser said in a speech reported by the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, according to Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI.