There’s an article in the NYT about the president authorizing US troops in Iraq to use force against Iranian agents they encounter there. And for the first time in a long while, I think the president said something that wasn’t simply asinine. But what I hope this means is something significantly more aggressive. Iran is currently engaging in a very sophisticated proxy war across the Middle East, with their agents infiltrating and taking over groups and using them for violent confrontations and takeovers. (Hamas against both Israel and Fatah, Hezbollah against all of Lebanese civil society, various agents including al-Sadr in Iraq, Iranian “military representatives” in Syria, and sleeper cells in every country with a Shi’ite population) These guys are using Iraq as a perfect opportunity to set up people who can do all of the things that they don’t want to do openly; a really significant fraction of the violence in Iraq is being driven by these agents, for Iranian purposes. (Mostly, to screw with the US, and to even have a chance to attack US forces, train against them, and evaluate their capabilities in the field)
If Iran is going to fight a “secret war” with the US, the US should feel no compunction about fighting a secret war back. Let me armchair-general for a moment: I would have already issued orders to capture or kill any Iranian agents found in Iraq, and if they have any local cell organizations that aren’t valuable for some other purpose, to simply wipe them out. Iran can’t complain about nasty things happening to its people when it denies that they’re in there; OK, let’s take them up on that. The fewer remaining members of their “intelligence services,” the better.
So for once, I actually think that our president’s call for increased military action in some regard is a good idea. Mark it well, it won’t happen that often.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 
William Perry gave a really interesting talk about the Iraq Study Group at Commonwealth Club recently. You can find the audio here:
http://commonwealthclub.org/archive/index.php?filter=audio&sort=releasedate
The key part of your last sentence is “in some regard.”
William Perry gave a really interesting talk about the Iraq Study Group at Commonwealth Club recently. You can find the audio here:
http://commonwealthclub.org/archive/index.php?filter=audio&sort=releasedate
The key part of your last sentence is “in some regard.”