Re-run: Bush warns of an Iranian Holocaust; Update: U.S. troops arrest six Iranian “diplomats” in Baghdad

posted at 3:09 pm on August 28, 2007 by Allahpundit
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I guess anytime the president of the United States warns of an impending Holocaust it warrants the Drudge red font, especially on a day when Ahmadinejad’s talking tough too, but he’s made this point before. As has Ehud Olmert. As has the dove of doves, Shimon Peres, who put it most bluntly. Not the first time lately that Drudge has hyped old news as something new and splashworthy, either, but since he was kind enough to do it let’s revisit one of the reasons Bush is worried. Here’s the “pragmatist,” “moderate” likely future Supreme Leader of Iran, Akbar Rafsanjani, on the subject of nuclear detente with Israel in December 2001:

Rafsanjani said that Muslims must surround colonialism and force them [the colonialists] to see whether Israel is beneficial to them or not. If one day, he said, the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel’s possession [meaning nuclear weapons] – on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This, he said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.

In fact, there was some real news at Bush’s speech today. This one’s also sort of old but has new urgency given the new escalation in the war of words:

In his speech to the American Legion, Mr Bush hit back, accusing Iran’s Revolutionary Guards of funding and arming insurgents in Iraq.

And he said Iran’s leaders could not avoid some responsibility for attacks on coalition troops and Iraqi civilians.

“I have authorised our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities,” he said.

He’s not talking about an invasion — or rather, he is, but not the one you may think. Read Jeff Emanuel to see what I mean. Quote:

Recently, a Public Affairs officer within Multinational Force-Iraq privately expressed his concern to me that the media were spiking or deliberately misrepresenting reports made by the military about Iranian involvement and the capture of Persian fighters within Iraq. “We would arrest three members of the al Quds force (part of the Revolutionary Guard), and the story that would come out in the papers the next day would be, ‘Three Iranian diplomats arrested from embassy.’ I’d call the folks at the papers and say, ‘Look, these folks weren’t diplomats, and they weren’t at an embassy. They’re Iranian soldiers and they were taken while fighting against the coalition in Iraq.’ I’d say to them, ‘We have evidence – from weapons to ID cards to uniforms – that proves beyond a doubt who and what they are,’ and I’d offer to bring them in and walk through each piece of evidence with them.

“They’d never take me up on it, and would never correct their stories.”

Update: Things are escalating awfully fast all of a sudden. Bush has been under pressure from Condi and the Iranians to release the five Quds Force members seized at Irbil in January; that was expected to be one of the goodwill gestures we’d make as part of the newfound “dialogue” with Iran. Forget about that now. Not only are they still in U.S. custody, we’re actually rounding up new guys. See Jeff Emanuel’s post up above about what kind of “diplomats” these turds doubtless are.

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