Iran's sponsorship of terrorism

Interesting article at MS/NBC regarding the opinion of the Iraqi people that Iran is solidly in back of that swine Moqtada al-Sadr. bq. Six months ago, Abu Sajjad was rolling in cash. His cloth shop is right in front of the Imam Ali shrine, a great location to attract pilgrims visiting this holiest of Shiite sanctuaries. The faithful who flocked into Najaf from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan bought hundreds of yards of fabric to take home as souvenirs. Now Abu Sajjad looks at his storefront, riddled with bullets and shrapnel, and shakes his head. "Why did this happen?" he asks. The area surrounding the shrine is a burned-out shell. Entire buildings look like they've been sliced in half. Broken telephone poles lean awkwardly across narrow streets, and tangled electrical wires droop down like old tinsel. Mosaics on the outer walls of the gold-domed shrine have been stripped away by shrapnel and stained with black soot. And still the young toughs loyal to rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are nearby, manning a barricade behind a shot-up ambulance. bq. "We prayed for God to come and strike down these gangsters," says Abu Sajjad. But neither the U.S. Marines nor troops of the U.S.-approved Iraqi government finished the job. And many Iraqis are asking: Why? How is it that al-Sadr could lead two insurrections in five months and still be alive, much less negotiating a new truce through Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani? Who is backing the round-faced young mullah? Who is protecting him? The most common answer�at once the simplest and the most complicated�is "Iran." bq. "Everyone is telling us that Iran is everywhere," says a senior Western diplomat in Baghdad. "It has become an obsession with Iraqis." And with Washington, too. U.S. intelligence and defense officials tell NEWSWEEK they have ample information pointing to Iranian support for al-Sadr. "He's clearly their guy," says one. But hedging their bets, "the Iranians are putting their chips down on red and black, even and odds," says another official in Washington. "At some point a winner will emerge on the political scene, and they just want to be sure they have leverage." And more on Iran in particular: bq. Some U.S. officials argue that Iran was always a bigger threat than Iraq. Former terrorism adviser Richard Clarke notes that Iran "funded and directed" Hizbullah organizations that blew up 242 American Marines in Beirut in 1983, and 19 U.S. military personnel at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996. "Al Qaeda regularly used Iranian territory for transit and sanctuary prior to September 11," as Clarke wrote and the 9/11 Commission confirmed, and many of Al Qaeda's top leaders "moved across the border into Iran after U.S. forces finally invaded Afghanistan." Iran's nuclear program, meanwhile, continues on-again-off-again progress toward development of atomic weapons. All the Baath party members didn't just fade away, they moved and are still trying to restore their totalitarian power elite to Iraq. The sooner we come to grips with this and deal with it, the better for everyone...