The new drumbeat on Iran
By Stephen Kinzer, The Guardian, July 11, 2007

Why attack Iran? War hawks in Washington are having trouble answering that question. Even their dire warnings about Iran’s nuclear program have not been enough to alarm Americans already weary of Middle East conflicts.

Now the war drums have taken on a different tone. The Bush administration is testing a new rationale for attacking Iran: We must strike because Iranians are killing our soldiers in Iraq.

This is not simply a charge made by one state against another in the hope that a misguided policy will be changed. It is also part of a calculated effort to find an argument for bombing Iran that Americans will accept.

The politically ambidextrous Senator Joseph Lieberman, a vigorous supporter of Israel and the Iraq war, floated the new gambit a couple of weeks ago. He calculated that Iran-trained units fighting in Iraq, and weapons from Iran or manufactured with Iranian help, have been responsible for the death of 200 American soldiers.

If Iran does not change course, he said, the United States should “take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq.” [complete article]