IRAN: PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Prefacing his presentation with “I cannot tell you everything that we know,” then Secretary of State Colin Powell sat before the United Nation’s Security Council in February 2003 and showed satellite photos he said depicted active chemical munitions bunkers in Iraq. He also warned of ties between Baghdad and al-Qaida.

In February 2007, Defense Department officials held a secretive press briefing in Baghdad, showing off weapons they said were coming into Iraq from Iran. The weapons, called explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, were used by the Shiite insurgency to kill 170 U.S. soldiers in recent years, the unnamed officials intoned.

In the case of Sunday’s briefing, the claims may be true. Another difference is that the United States must have learned from the debacle in Iraq that military might cannot bring about in the Middle East the democratic freedom touted by the president. Provoking Iran when, as debate in Congress makes clear, the United State has no way out of the conflict in Iraq, is unnecessary and unwise.

There are numerous troubling signs that the Bush administration is spoiling for a fight with Iran. While European and Iranian officials were discussing Tehran’s nuclear program in Munich, U.S. military officials summoned reporters for an anonymous briefing on EFPs, weapons that have been used in Iraq for more than two years. Even before the war started, it was assumed that Iran and other Arab countries would likely be drawn into the conflict. So, it would not be surprising – despite Iranian denials – that weapons and money flowed from Tehran to Baghdad.

The unnamed U.S. officials made a point of saying that the weapons killed 170 American and coalition troops since June 2004. While tragic that these soldiers perished, more than 2,400 soldiers have died in Iraq since June 2004, showing that the supposed Iranian weapons are only a small part of the problem.

Rather than news, the EFP claim appears intended to turn American public opinion against Iran just as claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were used to build the case for invading Baghdad.

This time, the public and, more important, Congress knows the consequences of a misguided military venture in the Middle East. With sectarian violence raging in Iraq, provoking Iran and its unpredictable president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be disastrous.

Congress cannot be so distracted over the nuances of its admonition of President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq that it fails to protest the administration’s latest anti-Iran campaign. With Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops already in Iraq and Saudi Arabia pledging financial support to the Sunnis, inciting a broader conflict makes little sense.

Now is the time for patience and cautious diplomacy, not oddly timed claims and bravado.