A great post by Steve Schippert at ThreatsWatch.org regarding the administration’s shrinking from its promise to release a dossier on Iran’s activities in Iraq. (I wrote about it earlier this week, here.) Steve imagines a scenario in which, rather than the U.S. finding Iran making trouble for the U.S. in Iraq, the Russians find the U.S. making trouble for Russia in Iran — Russia, in the analogy, having invaded Iran to overthrow the regime for fomenting terror in Chechnya. As he suspects, things would be handled a bit differently.
Also worth noting: the killing of five U.S. soldiers on January 20 in Karbala. It begins to look more and more like an Iranian operation — far too sophisticated to have been carried out by Sadr’s goons, and not in an area where al Qaeda could conduct such an operation. Did Iran use the IRGC’s Qods forces to kill American troops in retaliation for U.S. raids and captures of Iranian personnel in Baghdad (December) and Irbil (January)? (Bill Roggio’s take, here, also worth reading.)