Appalling

Last night NBC started reporting Pentagon spin that the attack in Karbala last week was too sophisticated to be a local deal and must have involved I-R-A-N.

I have a feeling that pretty much every person watching that report on NBC spent their time emitting record-setting decibel-level guffaws.

Josh Marshall condenses the scenario down to this:

A few quick points just to make a go of it. The possibility is being looked at because of the sophistication of the attack and the level of coordination. So, not likely that any native Iraqis could have pulled off this attack. Check.

And it's possible that the attackers were Iranian or "Iranian-trained". Again, just for the sake of conversation -- our current angle in Iraq is to cozy up to SCIRI (the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) as the moderate Shi'a grouping over and against the al-Sadr and possibly al-Maliki, the current prime minister. SCIRI's paramilitary is the Badr Brigade. They were formed in Iran and by Iran from pro-Iranian Iraqi Shia. They fought alongside the Iranian army during the Iran-Iraq war. Before we toppled the Hussein government, they were still headquartered in Tehran.

So Bush is kissing up to the same organization that we know, and accept, getting help from the Iranians...all for the purpose of using them to blame the Iranians. This is a lack of nuanced bullying befitting Kaiser Wilhelm II.

I'll continue this tour of early 20th century european monarchs at a later date