The New York Times is puzzled about Iran:
WASHINGTON — The United States has gathered its most detailed evidence so far of Iranian involvement in training and arming fighters in Iraq, officials say, but significant uncertainties remain about the extent of that involvement and the threat it poses to American and Iraqi forces.
Some intelligence and administration officials said Iran seemed to have carefully calibrated its involvement in Iraq over the last year, in contrast to what President Bush and other American officials have publicly portrayed as an intensified Iranian role.
It remains difficult to draw firm conclusions about the ebb and flow of Iranian arms into Iraq, and the Bush administration has not produced its most recent evidence.
But interviews with more than two dozen military, intelligence and administration officials showed that while shipments of arms had continued in recent months despite an official Iranian pledge to stop the weapons flow, they had not necessarily increased.
It’s not entirely clear to me why it’s important whether Iran is increasing the amount of weapons it’s shipping to Shi’ite militias in Iraq. Isn’t that it’s doing it at all of sufficient concern? Is it the position of the NYT that the Iranian regime arming, training, and encouraging Iraqi Shi’ite militias to attack U. S. forces in Iraq and kill American soldiers is acceptable as long as the level isn’t increasing?
It’s certainly difficult to get the situation in Iraq stabilized enough for us to reduce our troop commitment there as long as Iran keeps stirring the pot. That doing that would be difficult with Syria on the one side and Iran on the other, both determined to prevent a stable, democratic Iraq from emerging was self-evident before the invasion and was one of th several reasons I opposed the invasion so it’s certainly no surprise.
However, I don’t believe that bombing Iran, raiding Iran to eliminate training camps or staging areas, or an invasion of Iran is likely. Any of those measures would be more likely to bolster the domestic support for the Iranian regime rather than reduce it and Iran’s inevitable response would probably render the situation in the volatile Middle East less stable rather than moreso. I think the Bush Administration recognizes this even if their staunchest supporters, as evidenced in this comment thread at OTB, or their most ardent opponents, as noted in the NYT article, don’t.
So, why the saber-rattling now? Probably because it’s the only alternative they’ve got. If you haven’t been able to convince either yourself or your interlocutors that there are mutual interest, indeed, you can’t even get to the negotiating table, you aren’t willing to concede anything, you can’t get further economic sanctions from the UNSC, and you aren’t going to use military force, saber-rattling is the only tool available.
If you actually want some idea of whether our using military force against Iran is likely in the near future, you might look for one of the seven signs.
