Breaking: Bush Invaded Iran Last Night
Evan Derkacz
"But what's most troubling about this is the transparency of what Bush is up to. He's trying to provoke a war with Iran, either by forcing Iran to strike back, or by discovering secret Iranian diplomatic documents that would prove their complicity in helping the insurgents in Iraq. We just invaded Iran last night, folks. Foreign embassies and diplomatic outposts are legally the foreign soil of the country represented. We invaded Iran. This is an act of war."
"U.S. forces in Iraq raided Iran's consulate in the northern city of Arbil and detained five staff members," according to state-run Iranian news, via Bloomberg.
We don't know whether it was Iranians or Iranian diplomats who were captured or why the raid even took place. But the timing is curious, given Bush's speech last night.
The escalation being opposed by generals in the field, woefully inadequate, and deemed unnecessary by the Iraqi Government itself has led some to speculate on whether the escalation doesn't involve Iran and Syria in some way. I mean, who would be so stupid as to throw more troops in now? They point to these lines in Bush's speech:
I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence sharing - and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies.
In addition to the more direct threats, according to Bloomberg:
Bush accused Iran and Syria of aiding the movement of "terrorists and insurgents" in and out of Iraq and said the U.S. will "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies."
Tagged as: iraq, iran
Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs