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Over the past week, with Iranian shells raining down on Iraqi villages in Kurdish areas along the border zone in the north, Iran’s leaders have engaged the United States in a high stakes game that has gone virtually unreported in the elite media.Iran has massed thousands of troops along its northwestern border in preparation for a ground assault against Iranian Kurdish fighters who have sought refuge in the rugged Qanbil mountains in northwestern Iraq.On Tuesday, villagers found leaflets bearing the official Islamic Republic of Iran logo, ordering them to leave the area or face the consequences.“Our enemies, mainly the Americans, are trying to plant security hurdles in our country (Iran),” the leaflets said. “They achieve this through using agents in the areas of Qandil and Khanira inside the Kurdish region. 'The authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran will work on cleansing this area.”Hundreds of Iraqis from the villages of Qandoul and Qal’at Diza, close to the Iranian border in the province of Sulaymanyah, fled as a result of the Iranian shelling, according to wire service accounts.Should Iran be allowed to carry out its planned attack, it would amount to an overt aggression against its neighbor. But the potential damage is far worse, because of the deep U.S. engagement in Iraq.A successful Iranian attack against opposition Kurds from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (known as PJAK) based in Iraq, will strike a triple blow against America.Not only will the Iranians have violated Iraq’s sovereignty, guaranteed until now by the United States; they will have shown that despite the presence of 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, the United States “can do nothing” against Iran, as the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, liked to say.Even worse: if the United States sits this one out, we will send a terrible message to Iranian opponents of the regime in Tehran that despite all our calls for “freedom” and “democracy” in Iran, we will not intervene to prevent them from being massacred, even when we have the opportunity and the forces in place to save them from certain death.And yet, unless Congress and the White House react immediately, that is precisely what is going to happen.An Iranian victory in northern Iraq will have far-reaching consequences, and will further embolden president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is engaged in political, military, and intelligence hardball with the United States on multiple fronts, including inside Iraq.Just last week, U.S. forces arrested another “high-priority” Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer in Baghdad, and accused him of funneling aid to Iraqi insurgents.U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver announced the arrest on August 15, and said that coalition forces “will continue their focused operations against unhelpful Iranian influence interfering in Iraq.”An unnamed U.S. official said that the Iranian Guardsman was responsible for smuggling explosively-formed penetrators, Katyusha rockets and other weapons into Iraq, and “had direct ties to senior militant leaders and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force.”Another U.S. military spokesman. Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, told reporters in Iraq on Aug. 14 that Iran had recently provided 240 mm long-range rockets to insurgents in Iraq for attacks on U.S. forces."The 240 mm rocket is a large-caliber projectile that has been provided to militia extremists groups in the past along with a range of other weapons from Iranian sources," Bergner said.... To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
