True North

Over the last three weeks the Bush Administration has began providing the public with more and more evidence of Iran's intervention in Iraq. Iran has long been the world leader in state sponsored terrorism. With the use of proxy militia's like Hezbollah or with direct involvement by their Islamic Revolutionary Guards Command Quds Forces, Iran seems emboldened to flex their terrorist message. Especially now that the price of oil has climbed beyond the $100 a barrel level and fears of possible interruption of the transport from the Persian Gulf are increasingly real.

Additional concerns are growing with Western political powers since last Sunday's declaration by Iran's supreme religious leaders, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, renouncing any compromise over Iran's nuclear program. More economic sanctions may be on the way, not that they have worked in the past. Many Western intelligence agencies are now openly stating that Iran may have a nuclear bomb capability within one years time. This is causing great concern since Iran's long range missile program has developed missiles that can range Israel and most major European cities. A war weary America has become very skeptical of intelligence, both foreign or domestic, and it has weakened our resolve to act in a preemptive manner.

Read more at The Eagle's Nest Blog

Recent capture and interrogation of Iraq Shiite militants and Iranian Quds members returning from Iranian terrorist training camps near Tehran has proved the increased involvement of Lebanese Hezbollah groups and Quds forces to train and produce "master" trainers. These master trainers are instructed in sniper training and employment. How to fire mortar and rockets at US compounds. And finally how to assemble and emplace as road side bombs, IED's (Improvised Explosive Devises) and the more deadly EFP's (Explosively Formed Penetrators). At the end of their training they return to Iraq and train addition militants using these techniques and weapons to attack American and Coalition forces.


It appears that while Tehran has "guaranteed" the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that they are not arming, training or aiding Shiite militias in Iraq, the opposite is the case. Last month after al-Maliki sent forces into Basra to clean out militia and criminal gangs, they discovered large quantities of recently manufactured Iranian weapons and munitions. Some of the Iranian weapons caches had 2008 production makings.

Efforts by the United Nations and Western allies have failed to deter the Iranian government. Moderate political change is all but non existent in Iran at this stage. Our options for diplomacy are beginning to run out while the rhetoric from Iran against the United States and Israel have become more threatening. Even Hillary Clinton has warned that any nuclear attack on Israel would be met with nuclear retaliation.

It appears that the day of reckoning with Iran may come before a new administration is installed in Washington DC proving the longer you allow a problem to go unresolved the worse the problem can