The American Spectator

Best signals source reports that on Friday morning 3/3 prayers and sermons in Baghdad and throughout the critical Sunni and Shia mosques of Iraq (and including the critical Wahhabist mosques in Arabia) the message was the same in each case: the Americans are to blame for the Samarra shrine bombing, for the spasmodic mass murder since the shrine bombing, and for the continued threat to peace in Iraq.

In blunt sum, the American occupation of Iraq in order to establish a democracy where there has only been clan warfare and tyranny since the Crusades is now presented to the obedient worshippers as the cause of the clan warfare and tyranny in the Sunni Triangle, the Shia holy sites, the Baghdad slums.

More threatening, the mosque sermons are a backdrop to what signals source says is a general sense of an imminent major blow to the American occupiers. This may be another shrine attack, perhaps at Najaf or Karbala. It may also be an attack in Israel. There is the suggestion that it may be an attack at the American occupation itself similar to the Beirut Marine barracks bombing of 1983. Signals source says there is the clear suggestion that the event will be aimed at a political result — in other words, a blow to panic the American populace and oblige Congress to foment for American retreat from the Ummah.

Again, there is no mystery to this widespread dark turn to American interests in Iraq. Iran is directing and funding and driving this campaign. Iran now controls or supervises or provides logistical support to every major asymmetrical warfare unit operating in the region. This includes the corporate franchiser Al Qaeda, which is best thought of as an Amway like organization that depends upon Iran’s protection for its corporate officers in safe houses (well-guarded villas and compounds) in Tehran and other military reservations.

The approaching confrontation between Iran and the UN’s IAEA over the Non-Proliferation Treaty is the presenting cause for the turmoil in Iraq. But the NPT, the nuclear weapons fuel cycle in underground facilities, the rapid production in Iran of medium and long range ballistic missiles, the execrable slanders of Israel and the U.S., these are not the worst of what is coming. Iran will attack before it is attacked. Meanwhile, Iran will use the Iraq theater to weaken the American will while it uses the oil weapon to intimidate American allies.

Iran does have global ambitions as well as regional. I mention that the attack on the Abqaiq field was an inside job that was certainly known to Iran beforehand. The Arabian attackers were waiting for a conspirator inside the facility to open the gate when they were set upon by an unanticipated patrol. The firefight was haphazard. A wild shot set off the fuses and the truck bombs. It was the shot that saved the world. The Abqaiq facility is the dominant source for Arabian oil. Arabian oil is ten percent of the planet’s daily need. All sources confirm that the Abqaiq attack was an Al Qaeda operation. This means that Tehran not only knew of it beforehand but also anticipated its success.

What did Iran want to achieve with the Abqaiq operation? To push up the price of oil to $80 to $100 per barrel. This is the price Iran believes now will provide for its strategic defense needs.

The American war effort will get back on course when and only when the national security apparatus identifies Iran as the enemy, the central enemy, the enemy to be feared and destroyed.