US Forces Storm Iranian Consul in Arbil

On the heels of the BushCo communique last night, US troops surrounded and landed on the rooftop of Iran's embassy building in the Kurdish separate state in Iraq. They told the occupants to come out or die, and seized 5 or 6 men. Preznit promised to confront Iran and Syria, accusing them of supporting an insurgency in Iraq. These kind of statements can be confusing, since it's actually the Saudis who are most supporting the Sunni insurgency, which is likely responsible for most American deaths in Iraq. No matter, when you're trying to provoke a war. Having been so cheery the past few days, I'll tell you there's no need for anxiety over this. I'm sure the Bush Administration knows what it's doing, and we're in good hands.

Kurdistan is recognized as a separate state, and obviously agreed to have an Iranian embassy there, so this was a violation of sovereignty under any norms or international laws you'd care to apply. With that in mind, here are some very interesting sentences which are censored from the BBC (and perhaps) upcoming US versions of this article, but which you find in the German-filed original version:

Meanwhile, a source close to the Kurdistani government said the administration was unaware of the US plans to raid the Iranian consulate and didn't know the purpose of the operation.

After raiding the consulate, the US forces headed for Eikawa district, which hosts foreign companies and countries' representatives. Security forces of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (KDP) reportedly surrounded three US military vehicles to prevent them from further action.

Hmm. So, it sounds like Barzani (ruler of Kurdistan) didn't know about this, and didn't like it one bit. Which means the message was meant for him, with the US unhappy about his relations with Iran, in that having any at all is not with The Program. So Barzani will be driven further into the arms of Iran if he wasn't already in them. It's a direct slap in the face of Iran, too, but they can probably take it, having taken worse from America for the past 66 years (when Stormin' Norman Schwarzkof's dad became Military Governor of Iran in 1941.) And here's an Arabic network's coverage on the whole thing:

The IRIB Arabic network Al-Alam reported that the Iranian consulate employees had already been transferred to Baghdad although the president of the Kurdish autonomous region, Massoud Barzani, had tried to prevent the transfer.

Hosseini told ISNA news agency that all accusations by the US alleging Iranian interference in Iraq's internal affairs were just excuses to cover up the US failure in Iraq.

"Even the Iraqi officials have several times confirmed that Iran had no interference in Iraq," the spokesman said.

Forewarned is forearmed.