Lieberman-Kyl vs. the Evidence

Gareth Porter
The Huffington Post

The Lieberman-Kyle amendment has just passed the Senate overwhelmingly after two sections were removed to satisfy Democrats that it will not serve as a backdoor authorization for war against Iran, using U.S. forces operating in Iran. Even after that compromise, it remains a poison chalice, because it endorses a set of "findings" that are fundamentally false and which are being used by the administration to lay the groundwork for a more aggressive policy toward Iran .

The amendment is based on the Bush administration's proxy war narrative which has been filling the news media for the past nine months. It cites General Petraeus's classic statement of the proxy war argument of September 12: "[I]t is increasingly apparent...that Iran through the use of the Iranian Republican [sic] Guard Corps Quds Force, seeks to turn the Sh'ia militia extremists into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq".

It is not unreasonable to view the proxy war narrative as the equivalent for Iran of the infamous White House Iraq Group's carefully contrived -- and stunningly successful -- fall campaign in 2002 to prepare public opinion to support an invasion of Iraq.

The following six points summarize some -- but certainly not all -- of the evidence contradicting the line on which the poisonous Liberman-Kyl amendment is based.

1. The administration has not come forward with a single piece of concrete evidence to support the claim that the Iranian government has been involved in the training, arming or advising of Iraqi Shiite militias.

(Continued here.)