The New York Times today reveals that the United States is arming Sunni insurgents in Iraq.

With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.

Fraught with risk? To say the least. The article later describes the risk as:

the risk that Sunni groups receiving American backing could effectively double-cross the Americans, taking weapons and turning them against American and Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government forces.

Why is the Bush administration willing to take this risk? The following give us a good idea:

“They say, ‘We hate you because you are occupiers’ ” he said, “ ‘but we hate Al Qaeda worse, and we hate the Persians even more.’ ” Sunni militants refer to Iraq’s Shiites as Persians, a reference to the strong links between Iraqi Shiites and the Shiites who predominate in Iran.

At the very least we are arming both sides in a civil war, with our troops in the middle, as the Bush administration is apparently planning to widen the war to Iran.

Was General Pace Fired Because He Balked at Iran?


Jerusalem Post: 'Military plan against Iran is ready'

A high-ranking American military officer told the Post that senior officers in the US armed forces had thrown their support behind Bush and believed that additional steps needed to be taken to stop Iran.

Predictions within the US military are that Bush will do what is needed to stop Teheran before he leaves office in 2009, including possibly launching a military strike against its nuclear facilities.