If the assessment of these new IEDs is correct Iran has given the United States yet another reason to launch an assault against it.
March 6, 2006 - U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border. They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.
What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures - certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.
"The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production," says explosives expert Kevin Barry. "So it's the same make and model."
U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.
"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."
This would seem to offer the United States a causus belli. If it continues it's hard to imagine how we could avoid responding to the provocation. The Iranians are betting that Bush is too politically weak to initiate hostilities against them, and that he would, in any case, be reluctant to undertake military action without European allies giving us political cover.
This could be a case of holding correct premises but drawing from them an incorrect conclusion. Tehran may be doing precisely what Saddam did and the Democrats have consistently done with George Bush, i.e. "misunderestimate" him. Our guess is that when Bush thinks the military is ready he will not hesitate to bring the whole sky down around the Iranians' heads whether the Europeans and the Democrats are on board or not. Whether this would be wise or not is a completely different question.