Israpundit: Iran Prepares For War With Israel And U.S. Israpundit: Iran Prepares For War With Israel And U.S.

Israpundit: Iran Prepares For War With Israel And U.S. misses the big problem with Iran getting ready for war with Isreal and the U.S. The problem is not what Iran can do to Isreal, but rather, what that country can do to screw things up even worse for us in Iraq.

After all, how does Iran project force in Lebanon? How does it get those 300,000 Revolutionary Guards being called up to a location where they can fight the Israelis? Across Iraq? That would be somewhat unpopular with the Iraqis themselves, and even more so with the U.S. Swing up around the top of Iraq? I am sure the Kurds would not be very receptive to that, and might, just possibly, feed both the U.S. and Israel the relevant targetting data (to the extent that U.S. troops can't get it themselves there, which they most assuredly could). The Saudis are not much more likely to condone a quarter of a million Shiite Revolutionary Guards cutting across their country either. What is to keep them from doing a little Regime Change on their way? I have no doubt that the Saudis would be more than happy to try out all those F-16s and Abrahms that they have bought from us on any incroachment by the Iranian military.

No, the big worry, at least for me, is that the Iranians stir the pot a bit more in Iraq. Sectarian violence has been on an upswing recently, as it finally became apparent that the insurgents couldn't really kill that many American and British soldiers. So far, the mainstream Shiite establishment has been trying to cool this down. And, to the extent possible, would probably try to continue this. After all, the fault lines between Arab and Persian are probably as broad as those between Shiite and Sunni. But the Iranians do have some control over at least one of the major Shiite militias, and could very easy provide them with more assistance - fanning the sectarian violence even more.

Worse, there are indications that the Iranians have infiltrated a significant number of "sleeper" terrorist cells into Iraq. Apparently, the radical elements of the Iranian govt. pushed to infiltrate their own terrorists into Iraq, and the more moderate elements opposed this. The compromise was that "intelligence" elements would be infiltrated and not activated. They have shown a significantly greater ability to pull off complex maneuvers and are most likely able to take on the still maturing Iraqi security forces much more successfully than al Qaeda has been able to do. They are much better trained, and many are very experienced.

And the possibility of both aiding and inciting the Shiite militias, plus activating their sleeper cells, is why I worry a lot more about Iran in Iraq and I do with the possibility that they may try to attack Israel.