Flypaper Theory

I don't know if this is to be believed — it appears legitimate but cannot be 100-percent confirmed. From the current (Sept. 2006) Harper's Magazine:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

From a document found in the safe house of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, after he was killed by U.S. forces on June 7. The document was released to the Associated Press by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie.

The best way to get out of this crisis is to entangle the American forces in a war against Iran. A war between the Americans and Iran will have many benefits in favor of the Sunni and the resistance, such as:

1. Freeing the Sunni people in Iraq, who are 30 percent of the population and under Shiite rule.
2. Drowning the Americans in another war that will engage many of their forces.
3. Acquiring new weapons from the Iranian side, either during the battles or after the fall of Iran.
4. Enticing Iran to help the resistance, because of its need for our help.

How to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran? It is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian danger by doing the following:

1. Disseminating threatening messages attributed to the Iranian Shiites.
2. Kidnapping hostages and implicating the Shiite Iranian side.
3. Advertising that Iran has chemical and nuclear weapons and is threatening the West.
4. Executing bombings in the West and planting Iranian Shiite fingerprints and evidence.
5. Declaring the existence of a relationship between Iran and terrorist groups.
6. Disseminating bogus confessions showing that Iran is in possession of weapons of mass destruction or that there are attempts by Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America and the West.

Let us hope for success and for God's help.

You would think that the neoconservatives advocating war with Iran might rethink their position considering that this war is exactly what al-Zarqawi was hoping we'd be dumb enough to do. But, then again, these same hawks got us into the war in Iraq knowing full well that this was exactly what Osama bin Laden was hoping we'd be dumb enough to do. Apparently the neoconservatives think you shouldn't negotiate with terrorists — you should just capitulate to their pipe dreams without negotiation.