Only a Matter of Time

For those of you optimistically thinking that the need to confront Iran would disappear, the following news makes it seem less likely.

Anyone remember the mysterious incursion by Israeli jets into Syrian air space a few days ago? Initial reports (including from Israeli officials themselves) indicated that it was a mistaken fly-over. Now that the information is coming in, it apparently was a deep incursion into Syrian territory.

After days of silence from the Israeli government, American officials confirmed Tuesday that Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes inside Syria last week, the first such attack since 2003....

Officials in Washington said that the most likely targets of the raid were weapons caches that Israel’s government believes Iran has been sending the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah through Syria. Iran and Syria are Hezbollah’s primary benefactors, and American intelligence officials say a steady flow of munitions from Iran runs through Syria and into Lebanon.

Worse yet is what Israeli reconnaissance flights have shown.

One Bush administration official said Israel had recently carried out reconnaissance flights over Syria, taking pictures of possible nuclear installations that Israeli officials believed might have been supplied with material from North Korea. The administration official said Israeli officials believed that North Korea might be unloading some of its nuclear material on Syria.

In other news, the US military is moving to build a base on the Iraqi-Iranian border, with the help of the UK. This comes as the long-anticipated report by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker was released on Monday.

The move came as General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, made some of the strongest accusations yet by US officials about Iranian activity. General Petraeus spoke on Monday of a "proxy war" in Iraq, while Mr Crocker accused the Iranian government of "providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state".

In an interview after his appearance before a congressional panel on Monday, General Petraeus strongly implied that it would soon be necessary to obtain authorisation to take action against Iran within its own borders, rather than just inside Iraq. "There is a pretty hard look ongoing at that particular situation" he said.

It's about damn time that someone in our government recognized the fact that Iran is openly at war with our country, and a response is not only justified but necessary.

Most importantly, it looks like the strategy of increasing economic sanctions on Iran is politically dead. This perception came after Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that her government would not support any further sanctions through the UN imposed on Iran.

The announcement was made at a meeting in Berlin that brought German officials together with Iran desk officers from the five member states of the Security Council. It stunned the room, according to one of several Bush administration and foreign government sources who spoke to FOX News, and left most Bush administration principals concluding that sanctions are dead.

The Germans voiced concern about the damaging effects any further sanctions on Iran would have on the German economy — and also, according to diplomats from other countries, gave the distinct impression that they would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Germany's withdrawal from the allied diplomatic offensive is the latest consensus across relevant U.S. agencies and offices, including the State Department, the National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the most ardent proponent of a diplomatic resolution to the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions, has had his chance on the Iranian account and come up empty.

I'd say that the exact strategy upon which to confront Iran to rid them of their nuclear program and end their support of Islamic terrorism is debatable. But it seems fairly certain to me that they will be confronted militarily, and that such an action is necessary and just. It's only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.