U.S. authorizes troops in Iraq to act forcefully against Iranian agents
Former Iranian President Rafsanjani accuses Washington of escalating confrontation with Islamic Republic.
By The Associated Press and Haaretz ServiceThe White House said Friday that U.S. President George W. Bush has authorized U.S. forces in Iraq to take whatever actions are necessary to counter Iranian agents deemed a threat to American troops or the public at large - a sign of a more assertive policy to push back on Iran on that front.
Later Friday, former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani accused the United States of stepping up its confrontation with Iran on several fronts and seeking to undermine his country's economy.
The comments by Rafsanjani, a powerful figure in Iran's clerical leadership, came as the United States has vowed to take greater action to roll back Iranian influence across the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Lebanon.
Bush blasted Iran in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, accusing it of backing Shiite extremists in Iraq and the Shiite Hezbollah group in Lebanon, as well as of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
The United States is also bolstering its military presence in the Gulf as a signal to Iran, sending a second aircraft carrier to the region and deploying Patriot missiles. The deployment has alarmed Iranian leaders, who have stepped up warnings to the Iranian public that the U.S. might attack.
In a Friday prayer sermon at a Tehran mosque, Rafsanjani told worshippers, "Today our enemies have come with several issues against us while having supporters in the world communities. This is bullying."
He said the ultimate aim is to force Iran to abandon nuclear energy and ignore our legal right to a nuclear program. Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and has come under UN sanctions for refusing to suspend its uranium enrichment program.
He said the U.S. military buildup aimed to make Iran worry about a possible U.S. attack.
"This is a ominous plan to frighten our nation and affect life of our nation; to weaken investment, to weaken production, to make people to hide their wealth," said Rafsanjani while urging authorities to pay more attention to people.
The cleric said Iran should counter the U.S. campaign with a psychological war in their home. He did not elaborate.
Ranfsanjani, who was president from 1989-1997, is head of Iran's Expediency Council, a powerful clerical body, and a top rival to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Seen as a relative moderate, Rafsanjani lost to Ahmadinejad in 2005 elections but his supporters scored a major victory over Ahmadinejad's in city elections late last year.
Exiled Iranian opposition group says thousands of Iranian agents in IraqIran has thousands of paid operatives working in neighboring Iraq, an Iranian opposition group based in France said Friday, and it released the names of nearly 32,000 people it alleged were involved.
The National Council of Resistance's allegations could not be independently verified. And a press officer at the Iranian Embassy in Paris, speaking on condition of anonymity because of embassy policy, called the claims completely false and said Tehran supports stability in the region.
The council is the political wing of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, which advocates the overthrow of Iran's Islamic government. The council has been based in France since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Mohammad Mohaddessin, who heads the council's foreign affairs committee, alleged that thousands of Iraqis are working on Iran's behalf.
The clerical regime, faced with intensifying domestic crisis and isolation inside Iran, views its only chance for survival in the establishment of a proxy regime in Iraq, Mohaddessin said at a news conference in Paris.
The council released the names, alleged dates of recruitment by Iran and the supposed salaries of 31,690 Iraqis. It claimed that most were paid by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qods Force - a faction of the Iranian military that the U.S. military says bankrolls militants in Iraq and equips them with weapons.
It said that in Iraq, the alleged operatives were mostly affiliated with the Badr Brigade, the Iranian-trained military wing of Iraq's most powerful Shiite political group, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
Mohaddessin said the list was compiled in 2003 and 2004 by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and obtained by the council's sources within it, declining to elaborate. He alleged that most of those named were still working on Iran's behalf.
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Didn't Laranjani say that everyone needs to tone down the rhetoric? I read the Fars News everyday. He said that it is a weak chance that the US will attack Iran. Don't you believe him? Or are you the kind who just wants to pick a fight? If that is the case, please join the Guard. Good way to vent your hostilities, good exercise programs. Have a nice day.
US has stated time and again they are not going to attack Iran. But, we are not going to tie our soldiers hands in Iraq. If Iranian Guard comes across the border and interferes, they will be the only ones to be targeted. Period!
Totally wrong, Clinton's were much lower and so were Carter's. Please revise the statement. You actually think you know something you don't.
It's about time they have the right to fight back. We don't need a permission slip to protect our own or fight against terrorism. We do not have to apologize to anyone for our policies. Pretty much what George Washington said, and he was right. We will do what it takes to serve our interests and not yours. Blair feels the same way. Get out of the mosque and into the real world.
Because if they (Iran) succeed you need no worry anymore about anything, you will be DEAD And I wish Haaretz would stop censoring my posts while allowing al the virulent hate messages
"The United States is also bolstering its military presence in the Gulf as a signal to Iran, sending a second aircraft carrier to the region and deploying Patriot missiles. The deployment has alarmed Iranian leaders, who have stepped up warnings to the Iranian public that the U.S. might attack." This situation is reminiscent of the period immediately before the Six Day War, when a military build-up by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria provoked a pre-emptive attack by Israel. Are we (the U.S.) trying provoke Iran into attacking us, a false pretext for engaging them militarily? The Bush claim that democratic nations are peaceful nations is once again proved false. I don't claim to know everything there is to know about this situation, but I'm pretty sure we can't afford another war, in terms of further destabilization of the region, human lives, and money. I'd like someone to explain why they think we need to engage Iran militarily.
Usually I would call Bush a stupid and a very dangerous SOB. But by this last authorization, I would stop to call him STUPID, only a most DANGEROUS person on earth. With 34% approval in his early 3rd year of the second terms, he is an unprecendented loser of all U.S president of their second terms. In this NOTHING TO LOSE POSITION, this man could do the most unpredictable thing the world would have ever imagine. God forbid, like I suggested before (but I didn't really believed what I said), he could authorize the tactical nuclear attacks on Iran's nuclear technology activities sites sometimes within the next 2 years.
"What action if any do you think should be taken against Iran ?" Try talking to Iran, Mike - as Baker's Iraq Study group recommended.
"America will act forcefully against...." And, of course, the enemies of America are not going to hit back as hard as they can. This "strategy" will require American troops to venture out of their secure bases and go into the hotbeds of Iraqi resistance. At this point the US body-bag count will begin to rise steeply.
The Iranians have been killing Iraqis and Americans in Iraq for years, now finally the Ameicans have decided they can kill the murderers back. Better late than never!
Criticism is the easiest thing in the world. What action if any do you think should be taken against Iran ?
I'll be in washington d.c. tomorrow at the peace rally, we got to get rid of bush / cheney look for my sign how do you expect us to fight a war that started with men who refused to fight in a war. bush,cheney,perle,wolfowtiz,feith, I didn't see any of them during my two tours in vietnam
The Iranian crap started long ago. Carter Presidency. And please don't call me a neocon. I'm not a partisan person, just love my country.
was out of the barn long before Bush. If I remember, Carter was President when the shiite started hitting the fan. He sat around like a dope while Iranians held Diplomats hostage. 1979-1980. Spare the crap.
I notice that a major source for this article is the National Council of Resistance, a US financed organization based in Paris. Remember all that great intelligence manufactured to show Iraq had WMD? The work of another off shore US financed 'resistance.' Same guys, same lies. The astounding thing is that the Bushiz seem to believe that the same song and dance, the same playbook, the same crap that worked before the conquest of Iraq, will work again.
Now even the Kurds are getting pissed at us. The Kurdistan government is pissed that we raided the Iranian consulate that Iran was setting up and did so without so much as a heads up. Iran is encouraging trade and travel with Iranian Kurds, quite a different situation than existed for decades. Iran has also been supplying money for economic development in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush strong-armed the Iraqi government to order two Kurdish brigades to join in the civil war in Baghdad. The Kurds would rather stay out of that mess. Thus desertions have been rampant. Desperate attempts to salvage something from the Iraqi disaster - and as always, on the cheap - are doomed before they get underway. The Kurds would rather set the civil war out and we are insisting that it be spread to Kurdistan.
The kidnapped and murdered US governemtnal people in Lebanon during the 1980s was done by hezbollah but Iran was surely a party to it as they were to the truck bomb whch killed 241 US servicemen. The Saudis have said that Iranians had a hand in the Khobar Towers bombing. In Iraq most of the IEDs that kill US GIs are made in Iran and shipped to insurgents. They are 'professional' grade. Iran has been killing Americans when it can, either directly or by proxy. Time to take the gloves off with this despicable regime.
countries around them. What kind of people would do something so despicable?
A case of Bush trying to catch the Iranian cow after he has let it out of the barn.
"The comments by Rafsanjani, a powerful figure in Iran's clerical leadership, came as the United States has vowed to take greater action to roll back Iranian influence across the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Lebanon." George - don't be silly. You're going to get your feet wet.