Pacific Views

A Sick Sort Of Favor

Well, at least Bush can forget getting away with the time-tested demonization tool of accusing a country of being sympathetic to Al-Qaeda. I'm sure the Iranians are grateful:

Sunni rebels allegedly linked to al-Qaida were blamed for a deadly car bomb attack which destroyed a bus and killed at least 11 Revolutionary Guards today in the latest outbreak of violence to strike one of Iran's most unstable provinces.

... Officials said four suspects had been arrested shortly afterwards. ... The Baztab news website cited "informed sources" as saying some of those arrested were not Iranian.

Sistan-Baluchestan, straddling the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan and sitting on a major drugs route, has been the frequent scene of violent incidents involving militant Sunni groups and drug traffickers. More than 3,000 Iranian security personnel have been killed in armed clashes with traffickers since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

... Hossein Ali Shahriyari, MP for Zahedan, said insurgents were using Pakistan – a key US ally – as a sanctuary from which to strike Iran and called on the authorities to confront the Islamabad government. "Why doesn't our foreign diplomatic apparatus deal with Pakistan, whose soil has turned into a safe heaven for insurgents?" he asked. ...

Tomorrow, Bush gets to show the world whether or not he believes that nothing can be called terrorism if a US ally does it. If he and his administration have any sense or decency at all, these attacks will be condemned. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

Note: I've gathered information previously about Iran's well-documented role in fighting drug trafficking along their borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan. This isn't a new phenomenon or a story that Bush can wave off by attacking Iran's credibility on the subject.

Posted by natasha at February 14, 2007 09:26 PM | Iran | Technorati links |