One of the main reasons that I asked Ambassador Crocker to meet with Iranians inside Iraq was to send the message that there will be consequences for people transporting, delivering EFPs, highly sophisticated IEDs that kill Americans in Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki is visiting in Tehran today. His message, I'm confident will be, stabilize, don't destabilize. And the sending of weapons into Iraq is a destabilizing factor. That's why we -- yes, we've sent the message, Peter, and in that meeting.
And later:
My message to the Iranian people is, you can do better than this current government; you don't have to be isolated; you don't have to be in a position where you can't realize your full economic potential. And the United States of America will continue to work with our friends and allies in the Security Council and elsewhere to put you in a position to deny you your rightful place in the world, not because of our intention, because of your government's intention.
So it is a very -- it's a difficult issue, Jim. And the American people should be concerned about Iran. They should be concerned about Iran's activity in Iraq, and they ought to be concerned about Iran's activity around the world.
So the President says we told the Iranians to back off, lays out reasons we don't like what the regime is doing, and tells the Iranian people they deserve a better government.
And we are stepping up activities against Iran's assets within Iraq:
Operation Phantom Strike, the military announced, was being waged nationwide to disrupt Shiite extremist operations and insurgents affiliated to Al-Qaeda, which the Americans blame for most of the violence besieging the country.
"It consists of simultaneous operations throughout Iraq focused on pursuing remaining AQI (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) terrorists and Iranian-supported extremist elements," the military said.
"My intent is to continue to pressure AQI and other extremist elements throughout Iraq to reduce their capabilities," said Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, the number two commander of US forces in Iraq.
This will last until early September.
With all the discussion of whether we will strike the Iranian network all the way back to Iran, consider that striking only within Iraq does nothing to stop the source of the weapons, training, and personnel. Iran will push more into Iraq every time we roll somebody up. So leaving a sanctuary active won't stop the problem in the long run.
But if we intend to deal with the source of the problem very thoroughly by overthrowing the mullah regime, engaging in cross-border attacks right now would be counter-productive. We might just give the Iranians an excuse to launch mass arrests and kill suspected regime opponents on a large scale. That could derail any regime change plans we might have.
On the other hand, an operation to clean up Iranian assets within Iraq prior to our strike would blunt Iranian counter-attack options in the short run and be very valuable to us:
... Iran could indeed make mischief in Iraq if we attack Iran. Sadr will do his masters' bidding when the time comes.
Of course, we know this already. And if we are planning to attack Iran it would actually make sense to leave Sadr and his people in place, compile lists of people and arms caches at his disposal, and then wait until the eve of action to then kill or arrest them all at once. This would disrupt Iran's ability to raise the ante in Iraq and prevent the Iranians from building a new network that we don't know about to replace Sadr.
Or we could just be foolish.Could we get lucky enough to topple the mullahs, thus cutting off Sadr and stabilizing Iraq, isolating Syria and securing Lebanon, while undermining Hamas and Hizbollah. Now those are dominoes I like.
Could go either way, I suppose.
