Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, mistakenly said Tuesday that Iran was allowing al-Qaeda fighters into the country to be trained and returned to Iraq.
McCain, expressing concern about Iran's rising sway in the Mideast, said, "Al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and is receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran." He made the comments Tuesday at a news conference in Jordan; he made similar comments earlier to radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt.
Iran is a predominantly Shiite Muslim country and has been at pains to close its borders to al-Qaeda fighters of the rival Sunni sect.
Iran has been accused by the United States of funding, training and arming Iraqi Shiite militants in their uprising against the United States. But there have been no allegations by Washington and no evidence that al-Qaeda has benefited from Iranian assistance.
The faux nuance of our Left insists that Shias and Sunnis can never cooperate. I guess somebody better remind Ahmadinejad that Hamas is Sunni. And I guess Libyan support for Iran during much of the Iran-Iraq War didn't happen.
All along, Iran has worked with Syria which is supporting al Qaeda, so at the very least Iran has indirectly bolstered Sunni Arab jihadis in Iraq. I remain convinced that Iran probably had a hand in supporting the destruction of the Samarra Mosque in February 2006. And Iran certainly supports Shia thugs in Iraq. Really, since Iran wants chaos in Iraq, what better way to start a civil war than to support both al Qaeda and Sadr to shoot at each other?
Heck, Persian Iranians probably thought it was fairly clever to get Arab Shia Iraqis and Arab Sunni Iraqis to kill each other.
And heck, I suppose I should be happy that our Left is falling over themselves to admit Iran is destabilizing Iraq by claiming McCain failed to see that Iran is arming and training Shia thugs! This is an improvement over the Left's past bizarre claim that Iran has an interst in a stable Iraq.
But inconveniently for the line of attack on McCain's charge, this report is also out:
The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.
An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms "that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups." The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran's revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.
Another American official who has seen the summaries of the reporting affiliated with the arrests said it comprised a "smoking gun." "We found plans for attacks, phone numbers affiliated with Sunni bad guys, a lot of things that filled in the blanks on what these guys are up to," the official said.
One of the documents captured in the raids, according to two American officials and one Iraqi official, is an assessment of the Iraq civil war and new strategy from the Quds Force. According to the Iraqi source, that assessment is the equivalent of "Iran's Iraq Study Group," a reference to the bipartisan American commission that released war strategy recommendations after the November 7 elections. The document concludes, according to these sources, that Iraq's Sunni neighbors will step up their efforts to aid insurgent groups and that it is imperative for Iran to redouble efforts to retain influence with them, as well as with Shiite militias.
Oh, and that report is over a year old, from January 2007. I commented on the article back then, too. But I guess we need a redo on this fact for the attention deficit disorder Left.
But no, the Left is chiding McCain for his supposed ignorance of reality.
I am continuously amazed by the certainty that people who know nothing about Iraq, Iran, or warfare display when criticizing our war effort.
