IRAN CALLS ITS OWN BLUFF
By Michael D. Evans
For many months the terrorist masterminds of Teheran would play coy whenever they were accused of arming their proxy jihadists in their attempt to destroy Iraq’s budding democracy.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would play innocent, despite ample evidence that Iranian-made explosive charges that can penetrate the strongest armor are used daily to kill American troops – just as they were used last year by Iran’s Hizbullah proxy against Israeli armor in Lebanon. Iranian spokesmen deny reports by US officials to ABC News that American troops have intercepted shipments of the powerful new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.
But while the allies fight to bring peace to Iraq, Iran subverts their efforts by doing everything it can to impose another Islamist republic on the Middle East. Members of its Revolutionary Guard – the same force it deployed to export its Islamist revolution to Lebanon – has thoroughly infiltrated key positions of power. Hundreds of Iranian mullahs and businessmen have established important footholds in the Iraqi religious and commercial communities.
Finally this week, Iran could no longer hide behind its denials: batteries of its rocket launchers were captured by US troops for all the world to see, aimed at a forward American base south of Baghdad.
After several of the rockets hit Base Hammer, killing one soldier, a search found 46 rocket launchers aimed at the base, 34 of them armed with 107-millimeter Iranian-made rockets. Twelve of the launchers had been fired.
US commanders have frequently blamed Iran for providing weapons and other support to jihadist groups in Iraq, supplying explosives for the daily toll of suicide car-bombings and the rockets fired at Baghdad's presumably secure Green Zone. In the crazy two-way street of Iranian terrorism, its Revolutionary Guard has been accused of importing Iran’s Hizbullah proxy fighters from Lebanon to train Iraqi jihadists to attack American troops.
Teheran has been playing the West for fools, using proxy fighters in Iraq and Lebanon to distract the world from its continuing pursuit of nuclear weapons. Despite the threat of UN Security Council sanctions, Iranian spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini announced at a press conference this week that, "The nuclear activities of Iran continue in a defined and clear framework." He denied reports Iran had slowed its uranium enrichment program.
Meanwhile, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Watan reported that Iran claims to have enough ballistic missiles to hit 600 Israeli targets. Apparently reacting to the uncovering of its rocket attack on the US base, Iran brazenly said it would use the missiles to retaliate against an attack by the United States or Israel.
News of the Iranian rocket launchers was released last week just before another hi-tech explosive device made in Iran was used in an attack in Baghdad in which two American soldiers were killed. The Iranians, of course, denied responsibility. They also deny supplying weapons to a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, despite recent reports by British troops there of seizing arms shipments with Iranian Army markings.
The Iranians are both the chief ideologues of the Islamic Revolution they mean to spread throughout the world and its main arms suppliers. It would be a foolish mistake to think that their target is just the West. They aim to subvert and take over any government with a moderate form of Islam.
To this end, hundreds of Iranian-supported Saudi jihadists have been returning from insurgency training in Iraq to fight against their own government at home. Iranian proxy groups are spreading like a virus all over the Islamic world, from last week's attack on Pakistan's Red Mosque in Islamabad, to fighting in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Gaza.
Dr. Mike Evans is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Final Move Beyond Iraq (www.beyondiraq.com).
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