The Drumbeat For Iran Update

Today finds several AEI roundtables on Iran suddenly scheduled at precisely the time Fourthbranch Cheney called for them: the second week of September. Spencer Ackerman writes:

The real target of any coordinated campaign between the VP and right-wing D.C. think tanks on Iran isn't the Iranians themselves, or even general public opinion, but the Pentagon. Cheney needs to soften up his opposition inside the administration if Bush is to ultimately double down on a future conflict, something that a drumbeat of warnings about the Iranian threat can help accomplish. When asked if a third war seems surreal, given the depth of investment the U.S. has given Iraq and Afghanistan, Rubin replies, "I'm out of adjectives."

One of those AEI dog and pony shows is with longtime warhawk MIchael Ledeen, who would attack Iran tomorrow if he could only ride the bomb a la Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, and he's testing out a new message:

"A footnote to Fred Kagan's exceptional work on events in Iraq: he rightly says "al Qaeda in Iraq is a foreign-run Iraqi terrorist organization." Moreover, one has to stipulate that "Iraqi terrorist" is a term rather more complicated than outfits like al-AP seem to understand. Many Iraqis went to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, where they were trained/indoctrinated by the mullahs for twenty-plus years. We're talking about several million people, not a few cadres. Some of them, along with children, were sent into Iraq to fight us. It's very misleading to simply call them "Iraqis." Maybe they—and their children even more so—should be called "Iranians of Iraqi origin," or "Iranian agents" or some such.

Only thing, the bulk of those Shia Iraqis are now the leaders of the Iraqi government, not members of the entirely-Sunni Al Qaeda. This is dissembling of the highest order. But don't expect the media to sort out the confusion.

UPDATE: See also Nathan Gonzales on 5 reasons to engage Iran. I actually was fortunate enough to get a galley proof of his book, I'll be giving a review when I finish with it.