Iran invades Iraq!

[Tamas]

Okay, only an incursion, but seems to be not a unique event, and clearly shows they are probing Iraq:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8420774.stm

Iranian troops have entered southern Iraqi territory and taken control of an oil well, reports say.

An Iraqi official played down the incident, saying the area was abandoned and right on a disputed border section.

Iranian soldiers crossed the border and raised an Iranian flag over the Fakkah oil field, a US military spokesman told the AFP news agency.

Iraq's Deputy Interior Minister confirmed the Iranians stayed in Iraq and were in control of the well.

Earlier it was reported that they had withdrawn back across the border.

Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Ali al-Khafaji initially told the Reuters news agency the reports of the Iranian incursion were not true.

But Mr Khafaji later confirmed the incursion had taken place, and said 11 Iranians had dug-in at the oil well and had not left.

He said there had been no military response from Iraqi forces..

"We are awaiting orders from our leader," he said.

The incursion is one of several that have occurred in the last few days, he said.

The well is about 500m from an Iranian border fort and about 1km from an Iraqi fort, US Colonel Peter Newell told AFP.

[KRonn]

Iranians don't even need the oil, with all the nuke reactors they're building... for "energy" purposes.   

Imagine how bold they might become when they have nukes!

[HisMajestyBOB]

Well, that might be one way of uniting the country together.
Iraq Shiites are, after all, Arabs and not Persians.

[derspiess]

Well, that might be one way of uniting the country together.
Iraq Shiites are, after all, Arabs and not Persians.

Which begs the question, which is more important to them-- ethnicity or religion?  Folks in that region seem to place a lot of importance on the religion thingie.

[Palisadoes]

We should invade Iran.

[Darth Wagtaros]

What would Cheney do?  Probably the same as whatever Obama will do.  Except the non-mainstream media would support it.

[Grallon]

Give'em a good scare - detonate a nuke far above the iranian air space. 

Thugs understand one language only: force.

One the other hand probably no one is willing to follow through with such an ultimatum if the iranians decide to disregard it. *shakes head*



G.

[Tamas]

And they don't even need to follow up with conventional war on the short run. If their probing proves (as this example seems to indicate) that they can bully themselves accross the border at will, they could have a pretty easy time smuggling through supplies to shiite insurgents, making Iraq an other Libanon after Obama leaves.

[Alcibiades]

And they don't even need to follow up with conventional war on the short run. If their probing proves (as this example seems to indicate) that they can bully themselves accross the border at will, they could have a pretty easy time smuggling through supplies to shiite insurgents, making Iraq an other Libanon after Obama leaves.

They've been smuggling weapons, IED's, and 'trainers' for over 4 years now.   

[citizen k]

Iraq sends forces to oil well seized by Iran
By LARA JAKES, Associated Press

BAGHDAD – Iraq deployed security forces Saturday near a remote oil well seized by Iran, officials said, and its government pressed Tehran to withdraw its forces from the area along their disputed southern border.

U.S. officials applauded Iraq for standing its ground against Iran — an uneasy ally that analysts said was aiming to remind its neighbor of its economic and political pull in its takeover of the oil well Thursday. The site is located in one of the largest oil fields in Iraq and has about 1.5 billion barrels in reserves.

The standoff was a dramatic display of the occasionally tense relations between the two oil-rich nations that fought an eight-year war in the 1980s but now share common ground in Shiite-led governments.

"Again, we ask Iran to be committed to the good relations that they announced with Iraq and its nation, and to withdraw its forces immediately," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Al-Arabiyah TV. "This is the demand of Iraq, and we call Iran to be committed with that."

Iran, however, appeared undeterred.

In a statement, the Iranian military denied it violated Iraq's sovereignty and cited a 1975 border agreement in claiming the oil well as part of Iran's territory.

"Our forces are on our own soil and, based on the known international borders, this well belongs to Iran," the Iranian military said in a statement to Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam satellite television.

Iraqi army and police reinforcements were sent to a staging ground about a half-mile (1 kilometer) from well No. 4 at the al-Fakkah oil field, according to two Iraqi officials close to the site. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue with the media.

One of the Iraqi officials said Iranian soldiers came and went from the oil well throughout Saturday. They were gone by the evening, leaving behind an Iranian flag mounted at the well, the official said.

The oil field, parts of which both countries claim as theirs, is located about 200 miles (about 320 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad. It was unclear how many troops were involved, and Iraqi forces barred journalists from approaching the area.

The standoff spurred an emergency meeting of Iraq's national security council and high-level diplomatic talks between Baghdad and Tehran. U.S. officials, already worried about Iran's growing influence in the region, praised what they described as Baghdad's quick but measured response to the dispute.

"It does speak to the overall view here that they are not going to be pushed around by Iran," U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill told reporters.

Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hasan Kazemi Qomi, said he would use "diplomatic and technical mechanisms" to soothe tensions. And a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry accused foreign media of trying to "disrupt good relations" between Tehran and Baghdad.

Experts said it is doubtful that Iran is seeking to provoke Iraq, its only other Shiite-led ally in the Middle East.

Instead, Iran appears to be reasserting its place as having the world's second-largest oil reserves at a time when Iraq is looking to cash in on their own, said Alex Vatanka of the Mideast Institute, a Washington think-tank.

Oil fields along the disputed border have been frozen for years because of Iraq's longtime inability to entice investors to drill. Iraq is planning to open some oil fields over the next decade and has held two rounds of bidding this year — the first since the war — to develop some sites. Al-Fakkah was among three fields that were combined in one offer in the first round of bidding in June, but the proposal fell through.

At the same time, Iran's leaders may be feeling more isolated as the result of its domestic political unrest and international disapproval of its nuclear program.

"They are not looking for conflict — this is their way of projecting power," Vatanka said. "They are saying, 'Because we're isolated, because we have internal problems, it doesn't mean you can go in here and sign a deal on an oil field that is very close to our border without consulting us.'"

Once bitter enemies, Iraq and Iran settled into a more positive, albeit tenuous, relationship after a Shiite-led government came to power following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. U.S. military officials say Iran continues to fund and train fighters in Iraq and send weapons and equipment over the border — although less frequently now than in the past.

Adm. Mike Mullen, America's top military official said the oil well incident must be resolved between Iran and Iraq, and there were no plans by the United States to intervene.

In Baghdad during a two-day visit to Iraq, Mullen said Saturday that he remains worried about Iran's influence in the Middle East.

[Fate]

We should invade Iran.

I agree. You first.

[Sheilbh]

From a writer for The New Republic:

Greetings from Iraq. This week I've been traveling with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, on a whirlwind tour that took us through Afghanistan and Pakistan before we arrived in Baghdad this evening. This installment of The Plank comes to you from one of Saddam Hussein's lesser palaces, situated on a stagnant pond where the dictator and his sons reportedly used to go fishing. (Most of the buildings around the compound are now named after places in Oregon.) I'll be writing plenty about this trip in the days to come, and in the print edition of TNR. But I thought I'd provide some context for what I see is the lead story on the Drudge Report: IRANIANS SEIZE IRAQI OIL WELL. This is much ado about nothing. We spent the early part of the day in the southern Iraqi port city of Basra, which is both home to most (I think) of Iraq's oil fields and also right next to the Iraq-Iran border. At an Army base nearby, no one seemed very concerned by the news; we were told that the well in question--which apparently lies on disputed border terrain--has changed hands several times. "They play capture the flag," one officer laughed. Literally. "The Iraqis will put their flag on it, and then the Iranians will come in the middle of the night and take it down and put theirs up." Senior U.S. military officials apparently don't consider this a high-priority concern, either.

To provide a bit more context the Iraqis and Iranians have an ongoing (and quite possibly never-ending) binational border committee that's trying to finalise precisely where the Iran-Iraq border is.  The Ottomans and Persia never really fixed it and both sides claim certain sections.