British Hostages Retribution for Botched US Raid

Back in January, US troops raided an Iranian consulate in Iraq hours after Bush gave a speech accusing the Iranian government of "providing material support for attacks on American troops" and vowing to "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies." During the raid, five junior Iranian officials were captured and are being held to this day, ostensibly because the US claims they are intelligence agents with ties to "activities targeting Iraq and coalition forces"--a strange explanation, given that no coalition troops had been killed in the area, which was also devoid of Sunni insurgents and Shia militia.

Enter the The Independent, which reports today that "the US attack had a far more ambitious objective… The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was ...... to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment." Those men--Mohammed Jafari, deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard--were "in Kurdistan on an official visit during which they met the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, and later saw Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), at his mountain headquarters overlooking Arbil." The US failed to capture them, but managed to nonetheless laid the groundwork for the current hostage situation.

Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf.

…The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Iran believes that Mr Jafari and Mr Frouzanda were targeted by the Americans. Mr Jafari confirmed to the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that he was in Arbil at the time of the raid.

In a little-noticed remark, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, told IRNA: "The objective of the Americans was to arrest Iranian security officials who had gone to Iraq to develop co-operation in the area of bilateral security."

…The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British sailors and Marines - apparently considered a more vulnerable coalition target than their American comrades.

Digby aptly comments: "Has there ever been a president in history that you so wished didn't have access to military power? Not only is his every policy exceedingly stupid, he seems to mess them up in ways that make that bad idea seem good by comparison to what he actually does. I've never seen anything like it."

Nor have I. And I truly hope, once this criminal administration is out of the White House at long last, to never see anything like it again.

Originally posted at Shakesville, the new home of Shakespeare's Sister.