Iran is conducting a proxy war against the United States in Iraq, declared Ambassador Ryan Crocker last week.
How? Gen. David Petraeus explained. The Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah are arming, training and directing the Shia militia fighting U.S. and Iraqi forces in Basra and firing rockets into the Green Zone. Said Petraeus, the Quds Force is responsible for killing hundreds of American soldiers.
If true, these are acts of war from a privileged sanctuary. And Bush would be as justified in attacking these Iranian base camps as was Nixon in ordering U.S. forces to clean out the North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia.
While there is no reason to question the truth of what Petraeus and Crocker allege, this proxy war raises a question. What is Tehran's motive?
Iran, after all, is the principal beneficiary of the U.S. invasion that dethroned its enemy Saddam, ended the Sunni Baath Party's monopoly of power and opened the door to Shia politicians with strong ties to Tehran. The regime in the Green Zone is the same regime that rolled out a red carpet for President Ahmadinejad.
Why, then, would Iran bloody it up? Why, when things are going Iran's way in Iraq, would it risk war with the United States over Iraq?
The April 16 Los Angeles Times offers an answer. Iran's proxy war against us in Iraq may be Tehran's response to a U.S. proxy war being waged against Iran. Ahmadinejad may be exacting blood for blood.
According to Times' writer Borzou Daragahi, Iran believes the United States is behind groups that are systematically killing Iranians along the border.
One such group is the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan, or PEJAK, which is linked to the PKK that has conducted a terrorist war in Turkey and is considered by the United States a terrorist organization. The founder of PEJAK is Osman Ocalan, brother of the founder of the PKK, who is now serving a life sentence in a Turkish prison.
As Turkey retaliates against the PKK with artillery fire and raids into Kurdistan, Iranians are now doing the same.
A second group, regarded by both the United States and Iran as terrorist, is the Mujahedin Khalq, a cult-like group, operating inside Iraq on the Iranian border. Iranians also believe the United States is behind attacks in the oil-rich and Arab Khuzestan region of southwest Iran.
And, as Daragahi reports, "Baluch militants have killed dozens of members of Iran's security forces, including 11 elite Revolutionary Guard in a car bomb attack last year in Zahedan, a town near the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan." Jundallah, or God's Party, claimed responsibility for that attack.
Last year also, a Kurdish woman killed several Iranian officers and soldiers in a suicide bombing.
According to Daragahi, "Iraqi Kurds say perceived U.S. support for PEJAK and other anti-Iranian groups prompted Iranians to reactivate Ansar al Islam, a Sunni Muslim group with ties to al-Qaida that has been launching attacks against Kurdish officials."
The danger here is that these proxy wars could explode into U.S. air attacks on the Quds Force, followed by Iranian retaliation against U.S. troops, followed by U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and a third U.S. war in the Middle East, dropped into the lap of an overstretched U.S. military and onto the desk of the next president.
In his speech last week, Bush warned that the regime in Tehran "has a choice to make," and if "Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests, and our troops and our Iraqi partners" — i.e., this is Tehran's last warning.
Query: Where is the Congress of the United States? It alone has the power to authorize or declare a war of the magnitude toward which we may be headed because of proxy wars about which the American people know next to nothing.
Up on Capitol Hill, GOP Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina is seeking to rewrite the War Powers Act to ensure that — if the United States goes to war again — it be the "collective judgment" of both elected branches, as the Founding Fathers intended.
Needed now are congressional hearings to determine if President Bush has authorized a proxy war against Iran — by funding or arming guerrillas to attack the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and if that is what is behind the IRG-backed attacks on U.S. forces.
Even before such hearings, both Houses should pass a joint resolution declaring that no appropriated funds may be used for any pre-emptive U.S. air strikes on Iran — unless and until Congress has authorized such acts of war. If we are headed for war with Iran, it should be the collective judgment of all the nation's elected leadership, and not done on the whim of a lame-duck president unsure about his place in history.
To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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"If we are headed for war with Iran, it should be the collective judgment of all the nation's elected leadership, and not done on the whim of a lame-duck president unsure about his place in history."
Well spoken, by our real president, and The Greatest American.
The American people are very clear about Patrick J. Buchanan's place in history. All that remains to be accomplished, is adding his bust to the great ones on Mount Rushmore.
Mr. Buchanan has guided our nation with the wisdom which comes from his many books and articles, as well as by his direct service within three presidential administrations.
The spirit of George Washington flows from his pen.
This nation--under the Bush regime--has degenerated into a lapdog enforcer of United Nations resolutions. That was never the intention of our founding fathers--that we serve as a lackey to the international financiers, who manipulate history behind closed doors--as Benjamin Disraeli once observed: "...the world is governed by very different personages to what is imagined by those who are not themselves behind the scenes."
"It is the sacred principles enshrined in the United Nations charter to which the American people will henceforth pledge their allegiance.
What is at stake, is more than one small country. It is a big idea. A New World Order where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace, and security, freedom, and the rule of law ... [The war in Iraq is] a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, ... our fifth objective, - a New World Order, can emerge: a new era, freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace ... Now we can see a new world coming into view, a world in which there is a very real prospect of a New World Order. ... We are now in sight of a United Nations that performs as envisioned by its founders."
George Herbert Walker-Bush
"More than one small country," he says....
Shall we indeed "henceforth" defy the founding fathers of our country, to pledge allegiance to the "New World Order," which seeks to dissolve our country into the NAU/SPP?
Is the greatest idea for nationhood in the history of mankind, to be reduced to a bit-player which fulfills the mandate of the world body? Shall we subordinate our status as Supreme Shogun--and maritime superpower--so that our ship of state may sail in the same direction as the corporate fleet? Will we be LOST under the Law of the Sea Treaty?
Shall we continue to absorb the riffraff of the planet--under endless "immigration"/invasion, until our country resembles a tangle of squabbling nationalities with no central sun to revolve around other than the U.N.? Is this what is meant by the "thousand points of light?"
All of these fictions created by Big Brother, would reduce our nation to a Third World slum, as America serves as a petri dish for cloning proles for the New World Order. Our nation has become a petting zoo for serfs, under the Bush regime.
The myth that America belongs to the world, rather than the American people, has reduced Americans to pauperhood. We are not a polyglot boarding house for the world.
"An old saying was, “If you want to know where the power lies, follow the money!” Americans own less than 40% of the USA and it is the same for the rest of the western world. No advanced western country owns more than 40% of itself. Sovereignty is a thing of the past. Voting in elections is like reconfigurating the deckchairs on the deck of the Titanic...."
Moni the foreigner, Koblenz, Germany
Mar 25, 2008 @ 12:51 PM
"The age of Nations must end... the government of nations have decided to order their separate sovereignties into one government to which they surrender their arms."
- United Nation's World Constitution
"The United Nations is the greatest fraud in history. It's purpose is to destroy the United States." ~ John E. Rankin, U.S. Congressman
"The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. [...] [T]he capacity to assert social and political control over the individual will vastly increase. It will soon be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and to maintain up-to-date, complete files, containing even most personal information about the health or personal behavior of the citizen in addition to more customary data. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities."
Zbigniew Brzezinski
This New World Order is an alien concept to a free people, and is the harbinger of human bondage, taken straight from the pages of George Orwell's novel, 1984.
The war which has bankrupted our country, is in reality a prototype for the world body to intrude into the sovereign affairs of the nation state. it is the paradigm of tyranny for the people of the world.
That is why the United States of America no longer declares war, vested by the power of Congress, even though we are now involved in endless war, as our country remains occupied and annexed by the thirty-million-man Mexican guerrilla army known as "guest workers."
American jobs have been given to interlopers who steal the food from our collective mouth, as we transfuse our life blood, and national treasure into the Mesopotamian sands.
This desert mirage vision of "nation-building" in foreign theaters, is destroying the United States of America.
What are we fighting and dying for? Who is indeed behind the proxy wars?
Comment: #1
Posted by: Revolutionary Thought Adjuster
Fri Apr 18, 2008 11:25 AM
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"If we are headed for war with Iran, it should be the collective judgment of all the nation's elected leadership, and not done on the whim of a lame-duck president unsure about his place in history."
Well spoken, by our real president, and The Greatest American.
The American people are very clear about Patrick J. Buchanan's place in history. All that remains to be accomplished, is adding his bust to the great ones on Mount Rushmore.
Mr. Buchanan has guided our nation with the wisdom which comes from his many books and articles, as well as by his direct service within three presidential administrations.
The spirit of George Washington flows from his pen.
This nation--under the Bush regime--has degenerated into a lapdog enforcer of United Nations resolutions. That was never the intention of our founding fathers--that we serve as a lackey to the international financiers, who manipulate history behind closed doors--as Benjamin Disraeli once observed: "...the world is governed by very different personages to what is imagined by those who are not themselves behind the scenes."
"It is the sacred principles enshrined in the United Nations charter to which the American people will henceforth pledge their allegiance.
What is at stake, is more than one small country. It is a big idea. A New World Order where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace, and security, freedom, and the rule of law ... [The war in Iraq is] a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, ... our fifth objective, - a New World Order, can emerge: a new era, freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace ... Now we can see a new world coming into view, a world in which there is a very real prospect of a New World Order. ... We are now in sight of a United Nations that performs as envisioned by its founders."
George Herbert Walker-Bush
"More than one small country," he says....
Shall we indeed "henceforth" defy the founding fathers of our country, to pledge allegiance to the "New World Order," which seeks to dissolve our country into the NAU/SPP?
Is the greatest idea for nationhood in the history of mankind, to be reduced to a bit-player which fulfills the mandate of the world body? Shall we subordinate our status as Supreme Shogun--and maritime superpower--so that our ship of state may sail in the same direction as the corporate fleet? Will we be LOST under the Law of the Sea Treaty?
Shall we continue to absorb the riffraff of the planet--under endless "immigration"/invasion, until our country resembles a tangle of squabbling nationalities with no central sun to revolve around other than the U.N.? Is this what is meant by the "thousand points of light?"
All of these fictions created by Big Brother, would reduce our nation to a Third World slum, as America serves as a petri dish for cloning proles for the New World Order. Our nation has become a petting zoo for serfs, under the Bush regime.
The myth that America belongs to the world, rather than the American people, has reduced Americans to pauperhood. We are not a polyglot boarding house for the world.
"An old saying was, “If you want to know where the power lies, follow the money!” Americans own less than 40% of the USA and it is the same for the rest of the western world. No advanced western country owns more than 40% of itself. Sovereignty is a thing of the past. Voting in elections is like reconfigurating the deckchairs on the deck of the Titanic...."
Moni the foreigner, Koblenz, Germany
Mar 25, 2008 @ 12:51 PM
"The age of Nations must end... the government of nations have decided to order their separate sovereignties into one government to which they surrender their arms."
- United Nation's World Constitution
"The United Nations is the greatest fraud in history. It's purpose is to destroy the United States." ~ John E. Rankin, U.S. Congressman
"The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. [...] [T]he capacity to assert social and political control over the individual will vastly increase. It will soon be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and to maintain up-to-date, complete files, containing even most personal information about the health or personal behavior of the citizen in addition to more customary data. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities."
Zbigniew Brzezinski
This New World Order is an alien concept to a free people, and is the harbinger of human bondage, taken straight from the pages of George Orwell's novel, 1984.
The war which has bankrupted our country, is in reality a prototype for the world body to intrude into the sovereign affairs of the nation state. it is the paradigm of tyranny for the people of the world.
That is why the United States of America no longer declares war, vested by the power of Congress, even though we are now involved in endless war, as our country remains occupied and annexed by the thirty-million-man Mexican guerrilla army known as "guest workers."
American jobs have been given to interlopers who steal the food from our collective mouth, as we transfuse our life blood, and national treasure into the Mesopotamian sands.
This desert mirage vision of "nation-building" in foreign theaters, is destroying the United States of America.
What are we fighting and dying for? Who is indeed behind the proxy wars?
Comment: #2
Posted by: Revolutionary Thought Adjuster
Fri Apr 18, 2008 11:26 AM
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