Unfounded charges sabotage the prospect of bilateral negotiations

On Monday, July 2nd, a US military briefing in Iraq alleged serious Iranian complicity in anti-US insurgency in Iraq. Brigadier General, Kevin Bergner, an army spokesman, made specific allegations that the Iranian Quds Force had colluded in an assault on American servicemen in Karbala in January during which 5 Americans were killed. Far from presenting a smoking gun (or any actual evidence), this well-orchestrated media event is part of a familiar repetitive pattern of demonization designed to bolster the notion of an "evil" Iran in the minds of the American public. It is aimed at justifying continued occupation of Iraq and hostilities towards Iran, as well as sabotaging the prospect of further US-Iran negotiations which have been requested by Iraq and supported by the Iranian government.

Within hours of the press conference, U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), put out a press release that the Iranian government "has declared war on us.", and "our diplomatic efforts are only likely to succeed if backed by a credible threat of force [1]."

Much like Colin Powell's speech at the 2002 United Nations General Assembly, the venue and aura of Monday's event were fashioned in such a way that one might expect to receive serious evidence that would prove beyond a reasonable doubt the validity of an important accusation, such as "Iranian government is ordering the killing of Americans."

However, the presentation was devoid of any tangible facts and consisted largely of recycled allegations. The only difference, this time, was that US was willing to make a direct statement on the record, implicating Iran in the Karbala attack, something the military had been reluctant to do in the past. Otherwise it was simply a government press release which was echoed almost verbatim, enthusiastically and uncritically, across the spectrum of the major western media.

When the Karbala raid occurred on January 20, 2007, the Bush administration wasted no time pointing fingers at Iran, with no evidence other than the fact that the operation was "meticulously planned" and "sophisticated," essentially saying that this would preclude Iraqis or other Arabs from being able to carry it out.

The Pentagon announced that it was investigating possible Iranian involvement. Noting the lack of evidence, the January 31 story by New York Times suggested a political objective: "tying Iran to the deadly attack could be helpful to the Bush administration, which has been engaged in an escalating war of words with Iran."

On January 26, Bush issued the extraordinary blanket order which authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq. The order had nothing to do with Iranian involvement in the Karbala raid, other than the fact that the raid provided an opportune time. As noted by Washington Post:

The decision to use lethal force against Iranians inside Iraq began taking shape last summer, when Israel was at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Officials said a group of senior Bush administration officials who regularly attend the highest-level counterterrorism meetings agreed that the conflict provided an opening to portray Iran as a nuclear-ambitious link between al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the death squads in Iraq [2].

In February, the administration released a series of ridiculous pictures depicting collected mortars and other ammunition supposedly supplied by Iran. The pieces had writings like "9-2006" circled by red marker with arrows pointing to the piece saying "this indicates a 2006 production date [9]." Then as now, no actual evidence of Iranian complicity was presented. But, the media frequently repeated the unsubstantiated claim that such evidence did exist.

The program to blame Iran for Iraq violence was underway well before the compound raid now portrayed as central to the case against Iran.