Iran's activities are "obvious to anyone who bothers to look into it," and should no longer be "alleged," he said in response to a question. Senior American military officials said last month that the U.S. military in Iraq has compiled a briefing with detailed evidence of Iran's involvement in Iraq violence, but the briefing has yet to be made public.
McMaster, who led a successful campaign in the northern Iraqi city of Tall Afar in 2005, said Iran has trained Iraqi militia members as snipers and organized them in "assassination cells" to kill certain people opposed to Iranian influence.
Iran has also armed large numbers of militia members in Iraqi cities such as Basra, Diwaniyah, Nasiriyah and Sadr City, in Baghdad, training many in the use of the "most effective" Iranian weapons, including long-range rockets and a lethal form of roadside bomb known as an explosively formed projectile, or EFP, McMaster said. Iran has denied playing such a role in Iraq.
He also said Iran has tried to "Arabize" its effort by using Lebanese Hezbollah members to conduct some of the training.
What is obvious to me is that members of our Left just won't admit that Iran is waging war on America. Our Left insists that pointing out that Iran is killing American soldiers in Iraq and killing far more Iraqis is just an attempt to justify war with Iran. Our Left insists this is the case because it also persists in holding the obviously wrong premise that Iran shares with us an interest in a stable Iraq.
This is just insanity. First of all, with at least 400 American troops dead in Iraq because of Iranian support for Shia thugs (and some Sunnis, too), Iran is already at war with us.
Second, it is surely appropriate to debate what our response to this should be. If our Left thinks the answer is "nothing" or "run away from Iraq and let Iran win," let them argue that. But to simply deny that Iran is killing Americans, Iraqis, and destablizing Iraq is not exactly the way to prove you are a member of the "reality-based community."
To condemn Americans for pointing out that Iranians are killing Americans with far more outrage than they can muster for the Iranian campaign to kill Americans and Iraqis is just bizarre.
How high a form of patriotism is that Leftist thinking, anyway?
