[Peace-discuss] Telegraph: British fear Petraeus testimony will beat the drum for Iran strikes

[Robert Naiman]

 British fear US commander is beating the drum for Iran strikes
 Damien McElroy, Telegraph Foreign Affairs Correspondent
 Last Updated: 1:53am BST 05/04/2008
 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/05/wiran105.xml

 British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in
 Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed
 Baghdad government.

 A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's
 intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian
 military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely
 watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state
 that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed
 attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies.

 The outbreak of Iraq's worst violence in 18 months last week with
 fighting in Basra and the daily bombardment of the Green Zone
 diplomatic enclave, demonstrated that although the Sunni Muslim
 insurgency is dramatically diminished, Shia forces remain in a strong
 position to destabilise the country.

 "Petraeus is going to go very hard on Iran as the source of attacks on
 the American effort in Iraq," a British official said. "Iran is waging
 a war in Iraq. The idea that America can't fight a war on two fronts
 is wrong, there can be airstrikes and other moves," he said.

 "Petraeus has put emphasis on America having to fight the battle on
 behalf of Iraq. In his report he can frame it in terms of our soldiers
 killed and diplomats dead in attacks on the Green Zone."

 Tension between Washington and Tehran is already high over Iran's
 covert nuclear programme. The Bush administration has not ruled out
 military strikes.

 In remarks interpreted as signalling a change in his approach to Iran,
 Gen Petraeus last week hit out at the Iranian leadership. "The rockets
 that were launched at the Green Zone were Iranian-provided,
 Iranian-made rockets," he said. "All of this in complete violation of
 promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior
 Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts."
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 The humiliation of the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki by the
 Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in fighting in Basra last week
 triggered top-level warnings over Iran's strength in Iraq.

 Gen Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Baghdad, will
 answer questions from American political leaders at the US Congress on
 Tuesday and Wednesday before travelling to London to brief Gordon
 Brown.

 The Wall Street Journal said last week that the US war effort in Iraq
 must have a double goal.

 "The US must recognise that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war
 against it in Iraq," wrote the military analyst Kimberly Kagan.

 There are signs that targeting Iran would unite American politicians
 across the bitter divide on Iraq. "Iran is the bull in the china
 shop," said Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairman of the Armed Services
 Committee. "In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the
 Shi'ite groups, whether they be political or military."