Citizen G'kar: Musings on Earth

January 11, 2007

US Raids Iranian Consulate

From AMERICAblog is breaking news. Bush directed US troops to invade an Iranian diplomatic mission in northern Iraq and kidnapped their staff. Didn't we get mad at Iran when they did that to us? Provoking a war with Iran? With what will we fight? Nukes!
Last night, Bush sent US forces to attack the inviolate territory of a foreign diplomatic mission, the Iranian mission in northern Iraq - legally, the land of a foreign nation - and took the Iranians hostage. It's hard to see under international law how this is legal, let alone how this isn't an act of war. And it's beyond ironic that we appear to have condoned the very action that we condemned Iran for - attacking diplomatic missions in violation of international law.


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.


Only problem with Bush's plan? How exactly are we going to fight a war with Iran? Our generals told us we didn't even have enough troops to meet the needs of Bush's new escalation plan (the plan called for 32,000 more troops, the generals said we only have 22,000 or so available, that's it.) So where exactly will we get the troops to fight a new war with Iran, at the same time we're fighting a civil war in Iraq, and fighting an increasingly bad civil war in Afghanistan? Our worst nightmare would be Iran calling Bush's bluff and invading Iraq. So, why is it then that this is exactly what Bush is trying to provoke?


It's increasingly looking like Bush is more interested in provoking the coming Rapture than solving the multiple crises in the Middle East.


[..]This is incredibly serious. Bush may have just given every country in the world justification for attacking US diplomats, attacking US diplomatic posts and embassies, and taking our diplomats hostage. Then again, he already gave the world a green light to torture our soldiers, so why not add American diplomats to the mix.

1 comment:

Dave Marco said...

Comment from Ken:
The attack on the consulate is part of a more general move towards collecting material and making a case for more aggressive action and an attack on Iran if it doesn't immediately stop uranium enrichment. Maybe even if it does.
I just wonder if the US surge is not designed to have more power in Iraq to control reactions their to an attack on Iran.
Articles in the New York Times today point to the US line that Iran is meddling in Iraqi affairs. Hmmm an occupier from half the world away complains of a neighbour meddling?