It was only a matter of time…Iran’s kidnapping of Brits is America’s fault!
The Independent (UK): The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis
A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.
Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.
In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. 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.
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 two senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish officials.
The two men 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.
“They were after Jafari,” Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, told The Independent. He confirmed that the Iranian office had been established in Arbil for a long time and was often visited by Kurds obtaining documents to visit Iran. “The Americans thought he [Jafari] was there,” said Mr Hussein.
Mr Jafari was accompanied by a second, high-ranking Iranian official. “His name was General Minojahar Frouzanda, the head of intelligence of the Pasdaran [Iranian Revolutionary Guard],” said Sadi Ahmed Pire, now head of the Diwan (office) of President Talabani in Baghdad. Mr Pire previously lived in Arbil, where he headed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mr Talabani’s political party.
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.
Um, yeah. As if Iran never had any hostile intentions in the region. As if it’s out of character for Iran to take hostages. If only America didn’t exist, Iran would not have taken British hostages.
As many Iranian border breaches as there has been and as many encounters as US troops have had with Iranians in Iraq, you’d think that Iran would retaliate against the US for US actions. That would add up, no? Just like the Left to tie itself up all in knots finding a way, some way, to blame the US, even if we have to go back to an incident in January to create a torturously illogical “sequence” of events that “lead to the conclusion” that OF COURSE the US is to blame. Ever think that Iran is to blame? Could it be that the UK could be partially to blame as Iran had a pretty good idea that this pathetic demonstration would be met with a flaccid, prototypical Euro-melt. Sounds like Iran thought they’d get away with it…and it looks like they might. But it’s America’s fault, right?
Email This
Posted by Greg Scott on April 3, 2007 6:43 am
» Filed Under News, War On Terror
Trackback URL:
- Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator: Bush prods Iran on hostages
Comments
6 Responses to “It was only a matter of time…Iran’s kidnapping of Brits is America’s fault!”
-
-
-
Affiliations
The Giants
Advertise
-
-
Our Store
- Click the design to visit our store and help Stop the ACLU!
-
- More blogs about the ACLU
Syndicate Me
Since Bush has destroyed the Geneva Conventions and our own Bill of Rights, it seems strange to ask another country to do what we ourselves cannot do: Treat prisonners fairly and humanely. The entire globe knows Bush is BS, so they don’t listen to him anymore – only Barney and Laura still listen. We have lost all moral ground on which to stand.
Blame the whole thing on FRANCE they were the ones who gave KOHMENI asylum its the fault of those french wussies
“Just like the Left to tie itself up all in knots…”
Uh, dude, these are Brits writing. Not Americans. Watch where you point your fingers.
“…you’d think that Iran would retaliate against the US for US actions.”
I think they just did. And without getting shot to pieces in return. Clever, even though it’s still a very dangerous escalation. Of course, what we did by kidnapping the Iranian “diplomats”, who are undoubtedly guilty, was also dangerous. The point is, it wasn’t particularly clever. Or well managed. No surprises there.
“Just like the Left to tie itself up all in knots…â€
Uh, dude, these are Brits writing. Not Americans. Watch where you point your fingers.”
Uh, dude, is there no Left in the UK? I know where the story came from…I posted it.
repeat posting to fix broken link
[/quote]kidnapping the Iranian “diplomatsâ€, who are undoubtedly guilty[/quote]
YOU know they are guilty? Do you know what the charges are? where they are held? What authority arrested them?
Yet you are convinced of their guilt?
Why the hell do we bother with a Constitution? let’s rescind the whole damn thing. obviously all US authorities can be trusted 100%….
We arrested the wrong guys. We shold have arrested Talabani
and Barzani as enemy agents. The Kurds are in Iran’s back
pocket. US allies in Iraq are the Sunnis and Muqtada al Sadr,
both of whom — unlike Iran and the Kurds — want a unified
Iraq.