Amir Taheri (via NRO) notes that recent acts of violence in different places seem to have Iran's fingerprints on them:
All this, of course, may sound like circumstantial evidence. But a careful reading of recent statements made by the Khomeinist leadership in Tehran would show that the Islamic Republic and its regional allies, including Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, Hizb Islami and a dozen lesser-known radical outfits, have decided to pass on a message. The message has three themes:
* Radical Islam in the region is not controlled solely by al Qaeda and its allied groups and that the Khomeinist movement and its clients remain as potent as ever.
* The U.S.-led efforts to build a regional alliance against Tehran will provoke Khomeinist counter-attacks across the Middle East.
* Tehran regards the forthcoming negotiations with Washington as the diplomatic side of its broader campaign to destroy the Bush Doctrine and drive the United States out of the Middle East.
I reported earlier on more ominous thinking that Iran was preparing for some type of wider offensive:
I think we are winning in Iraq. And if the Iranians and Syrians agree with this assessment despite their rhetoric that they will win, they might want to up the ante to reverse our trends. And if they think they are next after Iraq is subdued, they may want to strike first before we do.
It is always a danger to underestimate your enemies. Our enemies want to win and we can't count on them to just go along with our victory. If our enemies are willing to gamble (or perhaps think God's will makes it a certainty rather than a gamble) or are desperate enough, might they not go for broke to try and break us in the whole Middle East rather than just in Iraq?
We may think that any Iranian action is foolish, but if they really believe God is on their side, taking on even a superpower is not terribly risky, now is it?
I'll ask again, what is Iran up to?
