The Redhunter

Andy McCarthy over at NRO cites a story in the Boston Globe in which Daniel Serwer of the U.S. Institute for Peace and who was part of the Iraq Study Group, said that "he was not convinced that the Iranian government had decided 'at the highest levels' to provide weapons to target US troops," From the Globe story

Some skeptics also say that US officials in Iraq and their British counterparts have known for more than two years that armor-piercing explosives were being smuggled from Iran, but had never displayed them to the media until Sunday, prompting critics to ask why the administration is choosing this moment to highlight the alleged misdeeds of the Iranian regime.

McCarthy comments that

When it comes to Iraq, the Left is dizzying. Are these not the same people who said that if Lynndie England was walking a naked Iraqi prisoner around like a dog on a leash, she simply must have been acting on orders from Don Rumsfeld, if not Bush himself? Now, the mullahs' own militia, formed for the purpose of exporting the Islamic revolution, is caught red-handed exporting the Islamic revolution to Iraq, and the Left's response is to ask whether we can really be sure the mullahs put them up to it?

I sent an email to McCarthy asking him about what Pace said and what he thought about it. I'll check The Corner tomorrow to see if he responds.

My Take

Like McCarthy, I find it very difficult to believe that some rogue elements in Iran are aiding the insurgency, and the leaders don't know about it. If by some chance it is true then the Iranian government is much more fractured and brittle than I had supposed.

I'm not sure, but my guess is that the administration is ratcheting up pressure on Iran but doing so cautiously. On the one hand, they want to let everyone know that we know that Iran is arming the insurgents. On the other hand, they don't want to directly accuse Iran. Maybe I'm missing something, but this is the best I can come up with.

What We Ought To Be Doing

Last September I wrote a longer piece exclusively on what we ought to do about Iran, so read that if you want my complete thoughts on the matter.

For now though if we think Iran is involved in aiding the insurgent terrorists we ought to say so unequivocally. I see no benefit to this half-way "we know there are Iranian weapons in Iraq but don't know if the Iranians are behind it" stuff.

Rumor has it (I didn't save the link) that a few years ago Secretary Rumsfeld wanted to attack terrorist bases in Syria but President Bush said no. We lost that opportunity, we oughtn't lost another. If we're not going to go after Iranian terrorist bases militarily(directly or though proxies) we ought to at least mount a serious PR offensive. It's bad enough that the administration isn't making a big deal about Iran's human rights abuses, we ought to at least go after them on aiding the insurgents.

Update

There's a long post on Instapundit on Iran in Iraq with lots of links. The short version of the post is that the administration ought to be doing a lot more, but direct military strikes aren't the answer.

Interestingly, Glenn posts an email by a leftie who thinks that taking any strong action against Iran would make us equal to the 9-11 terrorists. The other line from the left that I've seen recently is that "you guys screwed up Iraq now you want to create a bigger mess in Iran?" This is at best a bumper-sticker mentality. We've got a big enough problem with the administration not seeming to want to do much, we're evidently not going to get any help from the left side of the isle.