Today in the New York Post Amir Taheri discusses political tensions in Iran and how some Iranians view the significance of a US Attack.

The Arabic newspaper Al Hayat reported today that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have begun four days of maneuvers in the Garmsar area to test Iran's Zalzal 1 and Fajr 5 missiles. The paper also quoted sources in Iran who said that the government has begun holding a series of meetings to study the likelihood of a US attack on Iran in February that will target nuclear, military and oil installations.

The paper quoted informed sources in Iran who said that the Iranian "Ministry of Security" had submitted a report to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei emphasizing the "certainty" of an American military attack, whose highlights Khamenei ordered distributed to certain government officials. The paper reported that Ayatollah Ali Montazeri has severely criticized Ahmadinezhad and called upon Iranian officials to study American power and to refrain from provoking the people in the region. The report is here.

Yesterday the Arabic newspaper Al Hayat reported the Iranian secretary of the Assembly for the Discernment of Interests and former Revolutionary Guard Commander Mohsen Rezai is expecting current tensions to lead to an extensive military confrontation between the US and Iran within the next two months.

The report is here.

Today Juan Cole said:

"Iran is a poor weak third world country and poses no threat to the US. It hasn't aggressively invaded another country for over a century."

Iran is not poor and it is not weak. Iran threatens the US every day verbally and in every other way it can manage. Moreover, it is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, an idea which itself has been seen by every US government as a direct threat to its own interest. Iran is known for proxy wars, international terrorist attacks and assassinations. It has military and paramilitary capabilities that it cultivates and exports wherever possible and is an admitted advocate of suicide operations.

The US has no greater enemy than the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Iran is indeed the logical successor to the former Soviet Union as the world's chief US antagonist. In its propaganda Iran refers to the US every day as its enemy and as the Great Satan. Military analysts have said a US attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences for the US. Is this the profile of a "weak" country, or of one that poses no threat to the US? I'm not advocating war with Iran, but it should be seen as it is.

In context, Cole was trying to make a case for the impeachment of Dick Cheney, and he did make some good points.

Comments on Iran's economic situation and the nature of the threat it poses to the world were published here today by Amir Taheri.

Broadcast 19 January on IRINN

Broadcast on IRINN 18 January 2007

Broadcast on IRINN 18 January 2007

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

After posting a link to an account of the bombings yesterday in Iraq killing over 100 civilians, Juan Cole had this to say:

"We should be clear why these bombings are taking place. It is because Bush's policy in Iraq was total victory, along with his Shiite and Kurdish allies, over the previously dominant Sunni Arabs. Bush did this thing as a zero sum game, one where there is only one pie and if one person gets a bigger piece, someone else gets a tiny sliver. The Sunni Arabs-- among the best educated and most capable people in the country-- were offered the tiny sliver. They won't accept US troops in their country for the most part, and won't accept reduction to a small powerless minority. They have succeeded in provoking the Shiites to form guerrilla groups and engage in reprisal killings, as well, as a way of destabilizing the country. Bush's allies won't share power and wealth with them, and Bush himself keeps pushing for what he calls 'victory.' Today is what his victory looks like after nearly 4 years, and it is highly unlikely to look different any time soon."

Iraqis settle their disputes by perpetrating murder and mayhem, and this is George Bush's fault? I don't doubt that a lot of Iraqis are angry about what George Bush is doing. What I doubt is that things would be any different if, say Hillary Clinton, were trying to direct some other kind of effort in Iraq (whoever is the next US president will still be trying to do something in Iraq). If Hillary or some other democrat were trying to deal with US problems in Iraq, there would still be angry Iraqis. I believe those angry Iraqis would also be taking it out on their compatriots with bombs. It takes two sides to make a violent, lawless civil war with gruesome suicide bombings, tortures and lynchings. Any policy in Iraq, whether Cole agrees with it or not, will still get a violent response from some Iraqis. That's how all too many Iraqis express themselves when they are unhappy or feel threatened. This violence will still be something somebody can blame on the US using this logic: If they act like murderers and criminals, it isn't their fault. George Bush made them do it!

Cole's "Informed Comment" blog has a wealth of valuable information; I'm a regular reader because of its links to sources, but I can't agree with Cole's ideas about what is causing this violence. I don't think Cole's blog today really clarifies why the bombings are taking place in Iraq, but I do think the suicide bombers there are trying to foster the very conclusions he draws. His specialty is rounding up every scrap of bad news he can find with the implication that the US is the cause of it. That is such a consistent drumbeat that it takes on the odor of propaganda, in some ways a lot like what comes out of Iran.

On 16 January Iranian satellite TV (IRINN) showed an editorial cartoon from the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat and made the following commentary: "The purpose of Condoleeza Rice's trip to the Middle East is to fan the flames of war and prepare the way for sending additional troops to Iraq. To illustrate this reality Al-Hayat shows Rice leaving tracks made by military boots even though she is wearing women's shoes. This shows the militaristic thinking of this woman and US President Bush."

On 12 January Cole said concerning Iranian involvement in Iraq:

"One scenario you could imagine is that Iran was sending some aid and weaponry to the Peshmerga on condition it be shared with the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The US raided a compound of SCIRI leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim recently and captured Iranian intelligence officials there, who had come to consult about the shape of the Iraqi government.

"Kurdistan authorities have long had good relations with the Badr Corps, to which they gave bases in Kurdistan late in the Saddam period when they were jointly trying to overthrow him.

"Although Bush keeps implying that Iran is supplying weapons and aid to US enemies in Iraq, the circumstantial evidence is that it was helping the two main US allies in Iraq with their paramilitary capabilities-- Kurdistan and SCIRI. But it is likely that the money and weapons do bleed over into insurgent groups and have a destabilizing effect."

This is funny. It seems Cole thinks those nice Iranians are just trying to help their old friends in Iraq, and that if any lethal weaponry happens to get into the hands of people who would use it to kill US soldiers, it is just an accident; that stuff is merely bleeding into the hands of those Iraqis who happen to share with Iran a hatred for the US. The Iranians aren't sending it there deliberately!

Cole is only speculating, or "imagining," as he says, but this speculation can't be fed by any real awareness of the torrent anti-US venom that emanates daily from the IRI propaganda mill.

Even if Iranian money and weapons are accidentally getting into the hands of people who want to kill US soldiers, George Bush has every right to prevent it with whatever force may be necessary and to hold the Iranian government responsible and accountable. As a former soldier in the US army, I give him my permission. Although I am not comfortable with the US mission in Iraq, I support the right of US soldiers to defend themselves; depriving those who do not wish them well access to high-tech weaponry is definitely part of that self-defense.

I've been watching the Arabic broadcasts from Tehran, the ones the Iranian government uses to tell the Arabic speaking world what it thinks, and wants them to think. I expect if I watched the Syria broadcasts I'd be seeing similar things. It is very clear that the Iranian government approves of what happened, and they are trying to make it look like most Iraqis are happy about it too. They are showing interviews with Iraqis saying how appropriate the whole thing was; they are showing groups of Iraqis dancing in celebration, and of course they're showing old films about Saddam's atrocities to make it all look more necessary and justifiable. Iran loves to hang people, but they do it with cranes in front of people passing by on the streets. They hang people, including teenagers, for relatively minor crimes in which nobody dies, such as sexual misconduct and drug dealing. They probably don't like it that Saddam was hung privately. The Iranians also make a practice of flogging prisoners brutally before hanging them. They would have done that to Saddam too if they had been in charge of killing him.

I'm opposed to both the death penalty and identity politics. I am not moved by the fact that Saddam was hung on a Muslim holiday. It doesn't matter to me that he was Iraqi and Muslim. I'm angry because he was hung, period.