Al-Qaeda's Big Fat Iranian Wedding

NRO ^ | 2/23/2012 | Clifford D. May

[WPaCon]

The Bush administration waged what it called a Global War on Terrorism. Yet against Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, no serious actions were ever taken. President Obama is waging what he calls a “war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates.” Yet he and his advisers are reluctant to articulate what has become indisputable: Iran and al-Qaeda are affiliated.

Senior Obama officials have come closer to calling a spade a spade: Last week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described the relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda as a “longstanding . . . marriage.” But you had to listen carefully to hear him say that.

“Iran has harbored al-Qaeda leaders, facilitators,” Clapper told a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. They have been “under house-arrest conditions. [Iran’s rulers] have had this sort of standoff arrangement with al-Qaeda, allowing [al-Qaeda] to exist [inside Iran], but not to foment any operations directly from Iran, because they’re very sensitive about, ‘Hey, we might come after them there as well.’ . . . So there has been this longstanding, as I say, kind of, shotgun marriage, or marriage of convenience. I think, probably, the Iranians may think that they might use, perhaps, al-Qaeda in the future as a surrogate or proxy.”

[Colonel Kangaroo]

if there was a real relationship between Iran and al-Qaeda other than uneasy coexistence and ambient hostility it would have been obvious long before now.