This year, many truckloads of small arms and explosives direct from Chinese government-owned factories to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been transshipped to Iraq and Afghanistan, where they are used against American soldiers and Marines and NATO forces. Since April, according to a knowledgeable Bush administration official, "vast amounts" of Chinese-made large caliber sniper rifles, "millions of rounds" of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and "IED [improvised explosive device] components" have been convoyed from Iran into Iraq and to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insists there is "no evidence as yet" that Tehran government officials are involved in shipping weapons to Iraq for use against U.S. forces, a judgment that seems to hinge on the view that the Revolutionary Guards are not part of the "government." But the administration source cautioned, "these are Revolutionary Guards trucks, and although we can't see the mullahs at the wheel, you can bet this is [Tehran] government-sanctioned."
In addition, in early June the Washington Times reported from Kabul that the Pentagon had evidence of new shipments of Chinese shoulder-fired HN-5 antiaircraft missiles reaching Taliban units in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. This shouldn't be surprising. The Pentagon has known since last August that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards had supplied Chinese-made C-802 antiship missiles with advanced antijamming countermeasures to Hezbollah in Lebanon. One slammed into the Israeli destroyer Hanit killing four sailors on July 14, 2006, during the Lebanon war.
This fits in well with my view that until recently, interdicting the borders of Iraq didn't matter much. Weapons and money were plentiful inside Iraq from Saddam's former arsenal and treasury. So putting troops on the border would have been a waste since only individual suicide bombers were imported from outside Iraq.
But our efforts have finally dried up much of the internal sources of arms. These sources were mostly a Baathist and Sunni supply source, so wouldn't have been available to the Shias anyway. And the pro-Iranian Shias haven't been an active force since March to August 2004 until recently, when Iran has unleashed them.
The pro-Iranian Shias and actual Iranians have been the biggest latent threat to success for quite some time now. And with Iranian support, they are showing themselves to be a growing actual threat as the Sunni Arabs decide to quit and the jihadis are defeated. And these Shia thugs can be a growing threat because they are getting arms through Iran.
We must shut down the Iranian supply line to the Sadr thugs. And we can't let China's role in North Korea stop us from making China pay a price for helping enemies kill our troops. Perhaps we should turn the tables on China over Iraq and threaten to formally recognize Taiwan as an independent nation on the eve of the Olympics if China doesn't end support for the enemy inside Iraq immediately.
