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***update: attention, military folks and weapons experts…please help Michael Yon identify a weapon he photographed and which troops he has talked to haven’t been able to peg***

The Democrats may not want to hear about Iran, but our troops in Iraq have an earful to say about it. In both formal briefings and informal conversations with soldiers when I was in Baghdad, the subject of Iranians arms and influence constantly cropped up.

One intel officer complained to Bryan Preston and me about the essentially uninterrupted flow of weapons across the southern border.

At FOB Justice, Iranian weaponry weighed heavily on the minds of the officers who had recently lost a colleague killed by an armor-piercing shaped charge–the kind manufactured in Iran.

And last night, I received an e-mail from an Army captain who trains Iraqi security forces northeast of Baghdad:

I have successfully made it back from leave and have been very busy since I have been back but I ran across several stories about weapons being linked back to Iran. I hope that this is something that you address heavily on your blogs. I have a few points I would like to pass off to you since I have know people killed by these weapons, including a close friend that was killed yesterday.

First off, I am appalled but not surprised at quotes from many key Democrats on these “new” reports of Iranian weapons assistance in Iraq (even though anyone above the rank of SGT could have told you Iran was supplying weapons to insurgents over a year ago). The first quote I would like to address comes from the very distinguished Senator and vocal anti-military critic John Kerry, “Every leader in the region and every observer, every expert here in our country, tells us that Iran does not want a complete and total implosion in Iraq.”

That is perhaps the most absurd thing that he could possibly say. My only thinking is that he is basing this on every leader in the region he knows, meaning all the Saudi’s that give his buddies Al Gore and Bill Clinton millions of dollars for speeches and “advise.” As for the experts in our country I guess he completely discounts the experts that just presented all the evidence that proves a connection with Iranian weapons in Iraq. Plus I am sure he is basing this statement partially on the fact Iran has been such a great Ally in the War on Terror and their complete cooperation with the international community during their “peaceful” nuclear conquest. Maybe Senator Kerry is correct, maybe Iran does want a peaceful Iraq because the regional leaders and our experts say they do?

Kerry went on to say, “Ultimately, they [Iran] want an Iraq that is stable. They want influence. They want to be players in the region. And we need to recognize that and engage in a kind of diplomacy that the Iraq Study Group recommended.”

Well I rest my case, Iran does want to be partners in the War on Terror, John Kerry just said so. Iran has responded so well to diplomacy we should engage them with direct talks and give them the creditability that they deserve as true regional power. See, they are only attacking us in Iraq because we have not given them the respect that they deserve, it is our fault. If we would only talk with them, then they would love to see a stable Iraq. I wonder how all of the rest of us did not understand this subtle point Iran was trying to make as they continue to provide weapons that are killing friends of mine in Iraq. Hey, nothing spurs a conversation like a little Jihad.

“Now the United States administration is — unfortunately — reaping the expected bitter fruits of its ill-conceived adventurism, taking the region and the world with it to the brink of further hostility. But rather than face these unpleasant facts, the United States administration is trying to sell an escalated version of the same failed policy. It does this by trying to make Iran its scapegoat and fabricating evidence of Iranian activities in Iraq,” wrote Amb. Javad Zarif of Iran.

Sorry I made a mistake earlier, Kerry was not only referencing his close friends with big pockets in Saudi Arabia as regional leaders but also the leaders in Iran. I mean, who is more creditable on what Iran’s intentions are in Iraq than the Iranian’s themselves. Well if Iran says that they are not providing weapons to Iraq then it must be true. See, those direct talk things can work. Instead of spending all that time amassing large sums of evidence that Iran is providing weapons and training to Iraqi insurgent groups, we could have just asked the Iranian’s themselves and saved all that time and money. Gosh John Kerry, you are right maybe I should have studied harder in school and I could be just like you instead of being stuck here in Iraq.

New contributor Erick Stakelbeck, who covers the terrorism and national security beat at CBN, exposes Iran’s war on America today at Hot Air.

Andy Cochran has details on the military’s briefing regarding evidence of Iran’s war against coalition forces in Iraq.

Bill Roggio, who first noted Qods involvement in the Karbala attack, has a thorough rundown here.

The NYSun reports that the military has tied 170 US troop deaths to Iran.

Allah’s got video of Diane Sawyer continuing her “Great Terrorists Of The Middle East tour this week with a layover in Tehran to chat with Ahmadinejad.”

BBC has a slideshow of the briefing photographs.

Source: BBC