America is picking its targets in Iran.

The US military is drawing up plans for a “surgical strike” against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq, western intelligence sources said last week. One source said the Americans were growing increasingly angry at the involvement of the Guards’ special-operations Quds force inside Iraq, training Shi’ite militias and smuggling weapons into the country.

I have very serious doubts that Iran is doing anything at all in Iraq beyond offering monetary support and encouragement to get the Americans out of their country. But that is certainly no reason to attack them.

And when confronted, even by Iraqi delegates, Iran completely refutes any involvement:

An Iraqi delegation that arrived in Tehran on Wednesday confronted Iranian officials with "evidence" that Iran is smuggling weapons and explosive devices into Iraq and training Iraqi militants, charges that the Iranians vehemently denied, an Iraqi politician said Saturday.

"The Iranian side was hurt" by these allegations, Haidar al-Abadi said.
Al-Abadi is a parliament member from the ruling United Iraqi Alliance and a member of al-Maliki's Dawa party.

He said Saturday that the five-member delegation presented the Iranians with evidence of "weapon and explosive device smuggling, and the existence of training camps for Iraqi militants in Iran."

The Iraqis also supplied "proof that most of the Basra outlaw leadership had fled into Iran" after a military operation that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched this year against Shiite militias in the southern city, al-Abadi said.

Al-Abadi did not explain what the "evidence" was.

The Iranian officials "completely denied ... training, financing and arming" militant groups in Iraq, al-Abadi said.

This is another example of "he said, she said", except in our world it is more "America says, everybody else says", which makes us feel defensive and prone to give more credence to the American side of the issues.

At least that is how we may have felt in the past. But with the steady stream of lies that this administration has told us about WMD's, domestic spying, torture, and even our country's current recession, I am much more likely to believe Iran in this particular instance.

We have been trying to start a conflict with Iran for at least the last four years. And the administration has used the threat of nuclear proliferation, attacks on Israel, and now this threat of insurgent camps in Iran as an excuse to do it.

I can only hope that somehow there are some cooler heads in the Pentagon or in the Senate that can put the brakes on this insane policy decision.

Bush must be stopped from completely destroying this country.