NYT: 'Newly Revealed Orders" Issued By Bush Show US Has Opened A "Third Front Against Iran"

[kpete]

Opening a New Front in the War, Against Iranians in Iraq


By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: January 15, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 — For more than two years after Saddam Hussein’s fall, the war in Iraq was about chasing down insurgents and Al Qaeda in Iraq. Last year it expanded to tamping down sectarian warfare.

Over the past three weeks, in two sets of raids and newly revealed orders issued by President Bush, a third front has opened — against Iran.

Administration officials say the goal is limited to preventing Iranians from aiding in attacks on American and Iraqi forces inside Iraq. But in recent interviews and public statements, senior members of the Bush administration have made it clear that their agenda goes significantly further, toward foiling Iran’s dream of emerging as the greatest power in the Middle East.

In an interview on Friday, before she left on her latest Middle East trip, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described what she called an “evolving” strategy to confront “destabilizing behavior” by Iran across the region. Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said Sunday on the NBC News program “Meet the Press” that the United States was resisting an Iranian effort “to basically establish hegemony” throughout the region.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/washington/politicsspecial/15strategy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin