Wow, that is some display of ignorance on your part Bryce. Sadr’s men have infact been attacking our troops for sometime. Iran has also been supplying the insurgents IED’s for sometime.

I know lefties love to state that Secular and Non-Secular, Sunni and Shiite, wont work together against a common enemy but it’s just not true. They will indeed work together against a common enemy.

Further on my earlier post about the discovery of an Iranian arms shipment to the Taliban, Tom Joscelyn wrote this Weekly Standard piece a year ago about a high-ranking Taliban detainee at Gtimo who has acknowledged providing security for a meeting between Taliban leaders and Iranian officials in the weeks after 9/11, during which Iran pledged to help the Taliban in its war against the U.S. As Tom details, there is great reason to believe Iran has made good on this pledge — including by letting Taliban and Qaeda fighters escape into Iran after the U.S. invaded Afhganistan in October 2001.

Conventional wisdom from foreign affairs analysts and intelligence community types, of course, is that Iran despises the Taliban and, consequently, is likely to be “even more” helpful to us in Afghanistan than the Iraq Study Group farcically assumes it could be in Iraq. Maybe we should reassess, no?

Andy, I’m not sure that you would disagree with this, but it’s quite possible that the Iranian regime both despises the Taliban (all the evidence would suggest that it does) while at the same time is quite prepared to arm it. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that. Quite frankly, there’s a lot that the US could learn (or, more accurately, relearn) from that. In a rough world, the pursuit of the national interest may lead a country, any country, to engage with any number of thugs, psychos, and madmen. If that’s what it takes, so be it.

Andrew, I do agree — enthusiastically. This is why I have never understood the reluctance in many corners of the U.S. government to believe that al Qaeda’s Sunnis would make common cause with Shiites from Hezbollah and Iran, or secular Baathists like Saddam, if it would serve the greater goal (for them) of harming us. In international affairs, opportunism as well as who and what you hate more (or, maybe better, perceive yourself as threatened by) are historically better guides about potential alliances than ideology. Given our own history (aligning with Stalin in WWII, for example, or National Review’s joining forces with Mother Jones against the dreaded Postal Service), I don’t understand why our analysts categorically assume that there are some actors who would simply never work with other actors.

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The Iranians are training Shiites. Our troops are being attacked and killed by Sunnis. If you aren’t already well aware of that distinction, nobody should trust anything you have to say about the Middle East.

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Would some please ask Neville Nancy what her alternative foreign policy plans to do about Iran?

Are we just supposed to pretend that none of this is happening?

Are we supposed to overlook the Iranian backed attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and elsewhere?

Does engagement mean we overlook all that?

Iran is being emboldened by our evident weakness on all fronts. How many more Americans and innocents elsewhere will now die as a result?

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