YESTERDAY the US military was linking Iran directly to attacks on their troops, including an attack at Karbala in which five US troops were killed.
The accusation by General Bergner follows the statement of the US ambassador to Iraq at the end of last week that there were no talks arranged with the Iranian government about ‘calming down’ the internal situation in Iraq.
This statement followed on from last month’s meeting between the US ambassador and the Iranian foreign minister in Baghdad.
After this meeting the Iranians declared that they were ready to assist the US in putting an end to the uprising that was taking place in Iraq, and that they were definitely very much in favour of protecting the Maliki regime that the US had placed in office as its government.
The Iranian position was that it was in favour of continuing the talks, while the US ambassador said that the matter would be discussed in Washington.
Now the US has not only decided that it is not going to carry on talking to Iran, Bush seems to be on the brink of breaking with the Maliki government and to be contemplating another regime change in Iraq.
General Bergner indicted Iran yesterday, stating that a veteran Hezbollah leader had been captured in Iraq in March, well before the initial meeting with Iran, and that his capture gave rise to the information that Iran not only orchestrated the attack that killed five US soldiers, but that Lebanese Hezbollah fighters were being used to train insurgents in special training camps outside Tehran, before they were sent back into Iraq.
Bergner said the captive admitted working with the Quds Force, and that this force was linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Bergner insists that the Quds Force knew of and helped plan the attack on the Karbala government compound in January.
These accusations are ludicrous. Saddam Hussein’s armed forces were full of people who both trained and carried out military operations of all kinds.
The Iraqi insurgents certainly do not need to be trained in any foreign country.
Even if they did, why would Iran need to bring in Hezbollah to do it?
The Iranian armed forces fought Iraq for eight years. They have plenty of experience. They certainly do not need a handful of Hezbollah fighters to teach Iraqi insurgents how to fight.
What General Bergner is doing for the White House that stands behind him is creating the scenario where the Iranian government is depicted as the organiser of the Iraqi insurgency, along with Hezbollah, with the clear implication that it is useless to think of even talking to them, because until Iran and Hezbollah is dealt with it will be impossible to defeat or even quieten down the Iraqi insurgency.
This is a reversion to the Bush policy of a year ago when he encouraged the Israelis to attack the Lebanon, and then prolonged the war in the hope that the Israelis could crush Hezbollah, as a start to dealing with Syria.
Bush has also repeatedly warned that military action against Iran is one of the options that is permanently on the table as the US seeks to force Iran to halt its programme for developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
Now that the US has fallen out with the Maliki regime, Bush is now contemplating an even greater military adventure than that of March 3, 2003.
The US military chief in Iraq, Petreaus, has refused to meet Maliki, while Maliki has told his puppet army not to join in US assaults unless they have his approval.
The Bush regime is reeling from crisis to crisis, as is the capitalist system that it heads. The latter’s approaching slump is driving the former to greater and greater wars.
The only answer to this crisis is for British troops to be withdrawn from Iraq and the Middle East at once, and for US and UK workers to deal with their imperialist governments, with socialist revolutions, to expropriate the bosses and the bankers.
