If the resistance in Iraq continues to kill U.S. occupation soldiers, the United States will attack Iran, so declared the decider and commander guy during a news conference yesterday. “President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues,” reports McClatchy. “At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad, the president said.”

Of course, the keyword here is “alleged,” as there is a complete lack of evidence Iran supports “anti-American forces in Iraq,” although support for just about anybody in the country may be viewed as anti-American, as the vast majority of Iraqis want the U.S. out of their country, or what remains of their decimated country.

“Behind the scenes, however, the president’s top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran’s support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.”

As usual, a bit of translation is in order: Bush huddled with his coven of neocons and there was no debate to speak of, rather Bush was told what to tell the American people, or those bothering to pay attention. Quite naturally, Iran—or rather the Shia of Iran—support the Shia of Iraq, as they share not only a religion but important religious shrines in both countries, regardless of artificial borders established by the “British Mandate of Mesopotamia” in 1919 and later the so-called “Anglo-Iraqi Treaty,” that is to say Brits imposing a Sunni dominated monarchy on a Shia majority (including Turkomen, Faili Kurds, and other groups).

Neocons have a penchant for telling the same lies over and over, even though such lies are often roundly discredited. For instance, David Milliband, British foreign secretary, discounted the credibility of the claim that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force “is providing weapons as well as funding, training and arming Shiite and other resistance fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan,” as Stephen Lendman wrote last month, although this received scant attention in this U.S. corporate media.

Back in January, according to Muriel Mirak-Weissbach, the neocons planned to “to launch aerial strikes against a key Iranian Revolutionary Guard site in the suburbs of Tehran, the headquarters of the al-Quds Brigade. Such an insane option is reportedly being hotly debated in Administration circles, as some relatively sane elements recognize this would trigger a regional explosion.” Apparently the neocons backed off this proposal, as Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti Emir, told Condi Rice it made more sense to have a “dialogue with Syria, in particular, and with Iran in the interest of Gulf security in general,” lest the neighborhood blow up in his face. Now, instead, Cheney wants to bomb a suspected al-Quds site in Iraq proper, a more doable prospect and one likely not to freak out corrupt and decadent sheikhs worried about their titles and holdings.

“The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media,” McClatchy continues. “It isn’t clear whether the media campaign is intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq or both.”

Naturally, they take us for idiots. Of course the neocons want “military action against Iran” and if and when this occurs there will be nothing “limited” about it, although such moderation—or what passes for moderation in Bushzarro world—is a key selling point, sort of like a spanking new paint job on a rusted used car. All of this may not be “clear” to McClatchy and the corporate media—it is, of course, but then they take us for chumps and dupes, and most of us are—but for those paying attention this serves as yet another red flag on the path leading to the shock and awe of Iran, long in the cards.

“Nor is it clear from the evidence the administration has presented whether Iran, which has long-standing ties to several Iraqi Shiite groups, including the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr and the Badr Organization, which is allied with the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, is a major cause of the anti-American and sectarian violence in Iraq or merely one of many. At other times, administration officials have blamed the Sunni Muslim group al Qaida in Iraq for much of the violence.”

As we know, most of the violence in Iraq stems from the occupation and the resistance is primarily Sunni led and the neocons have labored mightily to portray this completely legitimate resistance as the dirty work of “al-Qaeda” and the usual suspects, that is to say the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI. As well, the case can be made that at least some of the “sectarian violence” in Iraq is the work of white guys in Arab garb and wigs, as briefly eluded to back in September, 2005, by the Washington Post Foreign Service and Reuters.

“Cheney, who’s long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran’s complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said.”

Let’s cut to the chase: Cheney is not “skeptical of diplomacy with Iran,” but rather finds it abhorrent and anathema. As a neocon, Cheney wants to bomb Iran and kill untold numbers of Iranian toddlers and grandmothers—anything short of mass murder will be wholly insufficient. As for this purported “truckload of fighters or weapons,” Publisher & Editor notes: “It was reminiscent of the day in September 2002 when Cheney and other officials went on Sunday talk shows and touted the now-infamous Gordon-Judith Miller front-pager in the Times on the ‘aluminum tubes’ in Iraq and the possible ‘mushroom cloud’ on the horizon.” Of course, plenty of clueless and ill-informed Americans bought into this transparent scam and no doubt many will this time around as well.

“Lea Anne McBride, a Cheney spokeswoman, said only that ‘the vice president is right where the president is’ on Iran policy,” or rather Cheney has downloaded his psychotic proposal into Bush’s brain, not the other way around. “Bush left no doubt at his news conference that he intended to get tough with Iran,” i.e., he intends to send his killers to deal with the aforementioned toddlers and grandmothers. “My message to the Iranian people is, you can do better than this current government,” recited Bush. “You don’t have to be isolated. You don’t have to be in a position where you can’t realize your full economic potential.” In short, bend to the neocon will or face the consequences—bombed hospitals, schools, mosques, entire neighborhoods, water and sanitation plants, etc., essentially a repeat of the invasion of Iraq with its staggering mortality and disease, thanks to tons of depleted uranium spread liberally about by high-tech serial killers.

Meanwhile, not even Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki is onboard with the neocon plan, as should be expected of an obedient puppet. “Maliki is on a three-day visit to Tehran, during which he was photographed Wednesday hand in hand with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Unconfirmed media reports said Maliki had told Iranian officials they’d played a constructive role in the region.”

In response, Bush declared he will have “a heart-to-heart with my friend the prime minister, because I don’t believe they are constructive. I don’t think he in his heart of hearts thinks they’re constructive either.” Is it possible al-Maliki will suffer the fate of the “Winston Churchill of Asia,” Ngo Dinh Diem, the puppet president of South Vietnam, assassinated by the United States for his inability to follow orders as prescribed? For now, Bush tells us he will talk to his “friend,” but once the talking stops, as it did with Diem, al-Maliki may show up as a corpse. No doubt a dance with Ahmadinejad has consequences.

“Proposals to use force against Iran over its actions in Iraq mark a new phase in the Bush administration’s long internal war over Iran policy…. Until now, some hawks within the administration—including Cheney—are said to have favored military strikes to stop Iran from furthering its suspected ambitions for nuclear weapons.”

Iran does not possess nuclear weapons, or can it be demonstrated they are in the process of developing such, not that it matters to the “aluminum tubes” neocons who not long ago insisted weather balloon trucks were mobile biological weapons labs, an absurdity backed up by the CIA, as the spook and disinfo agency proclaimed the seized trailers were “the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program,” thus demonstrating the quality of information the average American receives for his ransom, er tax money.

Finally, “Patrick Clawson, an Iran specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said a strike on the Quds camps in Iran could make the nuclear diplomacy more difficult. Before launching such a strike, ‘We better be prepared to go public with very detailed and very convincing intelligence,’ Clawson said.”

As usual, the corporate media is infatuated with the “analysis” from pro-Likudite “think tanks” such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, preferring skewered propaganda over reality-based reporting, the latter in short supply these days. It should be noted that Patrick Clawson, formerly an economist with the reactionary Foreign Policy Research Institute as well as with the neolib loan shark operations at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, believes Iran needs to experience a few “industrial accidents” in the lead-up to a full scale attack, this demonstrating exactly what sort of “specialist” he is.