Unqualified Offerings

Is what the BBC’s report on General Chiarelli’s trip to the Iranian border this weekend has in the way of “proof” that “Iran” is smuggling IED “components” into Iraq. “Iran” is scare-quoted because Chiarelli’s reported statements are remarkably cagey about whether the Iranian government is supposedly doing this or if it’s freelancers operating from Iranian territory.

There’s also the problem of propaganda eating itself.

Washington and London say there is evidence components of sophisticated IEDs behind attacks on British forces in southern Iraq were produced in Iran, a charge denied by Tehran.

You may recall that, at least until this weekend, the official word was that most of Iraq, including Southern Iraq, was quiet and normal:

“Probably more than 80 percent of the country is secure, and people are going to their jobs normally, while some pockets, neighborhoods in Baghdad, are troublesome,” al-Rubaie said.

Even since the weekend’s strife between the British and locals in Basra, the Brits maintain that things aren’t bad there. If so, the Iranians must be doing a really lousy job with their smuggling.

Here’s the closest thing to evidence the Reuters article presents:

The Iraqis at Fort Tarik said they had intercepted 1,972 illegals trying to cross from Iran, mostly Iranian pilgrims heading for the holy Shi’ite cities of Najaf and Kerbala.

I don’t doubt that Iranian intelligence uses the pilgrim routes to move intelligence agents and money to its clients in Iraq, but people aren’t bombs or bomb “components” or whatever.

Am I saying that the Iranians aren’tsmuggling IEDs or parts to allies in Iraq? No, I’m saying that we can’t know based on what we’ve been told and based on the track record of coalition statements. About the only thing we can conclude from the article is that the British are on board with ratcheting up tensions with Iran. Which fits with news we can verify.