Roger L. Simon thinks it's time for the blogosphere to recognize the sinister role of the Iranian mullahcracy in the widening war (especially in light of Iranian puppet Muktada al Sadr).

The media are engaged in the presidential campaign, as if the contest between Bush and Kerrey was of greater significance than the battle between fascism and democracy. Well…hello!... it’s not (and, yes, there are many other issues and, yes, I recognize they are important, but not this important, nowhere near). It is the job of the blogs—freelance, unfettered and (mostly) unpaid—to keep the focus on what’s really consequential, the future of civilization. Iran is on the top of my list. I invite you to join me. (Via InstaPundit.)

I agree wholeheartedly, and as a starting point, I suggest that everyone read this eye-opening analysis at the Belmont Club, entitled "The Wider War." A few highlights:

infiltration of Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Al-Quds Army into Iraq began long before the war, through hundreds of Iranian intelligence agents

Iranian plan to turn Iraq into another Iran is a wide-ranging plan, and it involves the recruitment of thousands of young Shi'ites for the next stage, which will take place with the [first] parliamentary elections in Iraq

300 reporters and technicians who are working now in Iraq for television and radio networks, newspapers, and other media agencies are in fact members of the (Iranian) Al-Quds Army and the Revolutionary Guards intelligence units.

Iranian money allocations for activities in Iraq, both covert and overt, reached $70 million per month.....

2,700 apartments and rooms were rented in Karbala and Najaf, in order to serve agents of the Al-Quds Army and the Revolutionary Guards.

assassination last summer of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir Al-Hakim, who headed the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), was a successful operation carried out by the intelligence unit of the Iranian Al-Quds Army.

Iran and Syria were sending thousands of terrorists into Iraq to attack Coalition forces

more than a hundred highly trained Arab mullahs from Qom and other Iranian religious centers into Iraq, especially to Najaf and Karbala, the holy cities of the Shiite faith

political strategy combined with terrorist acts and assassinations, as in the case of the very charismatic Ayatollah Khoi in Najaf.

There's much more, and Wretchard's conclusion is even more ominous:

....[T]wo accounts, one translated contemporaneously from the Arabic press and a year-old analysis from the National Review which agree on almost every single salient point. What we do not know is the extent to which the US Government appreciated the threat, and how this now-manifest Iranian intervention interacted with European efforts to convince Teheran to open their borders to nuclear inspection. In the coming days the public may learn what contingency plans, if any, CENTCOM had poised against this threat. More importantly, we will discover whether these plans were held back or watered down over a desire not to antagonize Teheran, lest the nuclear proliferation issue be entailed. The linkage between the two would establish that the current war in Iraq is far more perilous than it might seem at first glance. What we are witnessing is not a confrontation between the United States and some nationalist "insurgents", but possibly the opening acts of a confrontation with a nuclear armed terrorist state.

Forgive me for asking, but does anyone know what the term "imminent threat" means these days?

And in a companion piece, Wretchard notes that the enemy now facing the US is an old one, Hizbollah:

Although Sadr's offensive has been sudden, it followed a year-long buildup of Hizbullah's organizational, propaganda, and military apparatuses in Iraq. In the weeks before the US-led invasion last March, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah was already calling for suicide bombings against US forces in the event that they went through with the invasion. Shortly after the fall of Saddam's regime, Hizbullah opened offices in Basra and Safwan. While press coverage of Sadr has portrayed him as a young firebrand who acts autonomously, his connections to Hizbullah and to Iran are long-standing. Nasrallah is personally tied to Sadr's family. In 1976, he studied under Sadr's father Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr in Najaf. Back in Lebanon, Nasrallah joined the Shi'ite Amal militia when it was led by its founder, Sadr's uncle Musa. Aside from his personal ties to Nasrallah, Sadr takes his direction from Ayatollah Henri, one of the most ardent extremists in Iranian ruling circles. And on the family level, Sadr's aunt is reportedly the first lady of Iran, Mrs. Muhammad Khatami. Iranian Revolutionary Guards reportedly comprise the backbone of Sadr's fighting force.

Iran and it's Hizbollah front have been engaged in worldwide terrorist hegemony for years. As Dariush Shirazi argues eloquently today in BLOG-IRAN, this is a virus that must be stopped.

Readers interested in more background documenting the links between Hizbollah and Iran, and particularly the connection via Imad Mughniyah, might start with this analysis of a Hizbollah/Mughniyah operation in Argentina a decade ago.

Jihad Watch makes a good point that Hizbollah is now emerging as a rival to al Qaida.

However, it must not be forgotten that there is a working alliance between al Qaida and Hizbollah, via Imad Mughniyah and the Committee of Three (which I have discussed before.)

ICT (the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism) explains the nature of this alliance here:

Although the Hizballah is a Shia Muslim organization, and al-Qaida, a Sunni Muslim group, there is substantial evidence of a working alliance between the two groups dating back to the early 1990s. The trial of al-Qaida militants in the United States has revealed not only ideological links, but also operational connections between Hizballah and al-Qaida.

A representative of bin Ladin reportedly met with an official of the Iranian government prior to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa, in order to establish an “anti-U.S. alliance.” This meeting was reportedly followed by an even more important one, this time between bin Ladin and Imad Mugniyeh, the operations director of Hizballah. The bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa bear an operational resemblance to Hizballah suicide attacks against the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Ali Mohamed, who was convicted of conspiracy in the U.S. embassy bombings, testified that al-Qaida’s method for driving the United States out of the Middle East was modeled on the successes of the Lebanese Hizballah organization.

Not only that, for several months now, Imad Mughniyah, key architect of this alliance, may have been in Iraq.

Imad Mughniyah reportedly is in Iraq. You may not have heard of him, but every intelligence officer in the West has.

Born in Lebanon in 1962, Mughniyah got his start working for Yassir Arafat, but soon switched to the Iranian/Syrian backed Hezbollah, for whom he currently is operations chief.

Mughniyah masterminded the bombings of the U.S. embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, and the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina a decade later. Many think he was behind the bombing of the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996.

Though a Shi'ia Muslim for whom Wahhabis like Osama bin Laden purportedly have disdain, Mughniyah has had connections to al Qaida since the early 1990s. During his trial for his role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, al Qaida operative Ali Muhammad testified he introduced Mughniyah to bin Laden in Somalia in 1993. German terrorism expert Rolf Tophoven said last year that bin Laden has put Mughniyah in charge of al Qaida operations in the Middle East and Africa.

Mughniyah was in Iran until early August, according to the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. While in Iran, Mughniyah met with Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaida's second in command, and with Osama's son Said bin Laden, said Michael Ledeen, a terrorism expert for the American Enterprise Institute. U.S. authorities have said the truck bombs used to attack the UN compound in Baghdad Aug. 19 and the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf Aug. 29 were virtually identical. Ledeen sees Mughniyah's fingerprints on both.

There's also this testimony by Iranian intelligence operative Hamid Reza Zakeri (not his real name).

Other excellent bloggers have been all over the Iranian connection and there are so many confirming stories confirming Iran's links both to al Qaida and Hizbollah in Iraq that there really isn't much I could add.

But I do want to offer one thing. I couldn't help notice the striking resemblance between al Sadr's "Mahdi Army" and Hizbollah marching soldiers.

Here's a recent photograph of al Sadr's guys.

And here is a video I downloaded from Hizbollah's website in October, 2001.

The above is genuine viral overload from virus central, folks! It features the official Hizbollah anthem, speech clips from Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, but if you watch closely, early in the video, you'll see the same thing (watch just as the singing starts): black uniforms, black head scarves, and white gloves on hands tucked held just in front of the belt while marching to their fascistic anthem.

(I'll end on that sickening "note.")

NOTE: Much more information about al Qaida, Hizbollah, and the imminent threat was published in a book I read in 1999 -- Yossef Bodansky's Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America.

Of course, the declaration of war on America was hardly "imminent" at the time. It was a done deal in 1996 -- long before even the U.S.S. Cole.

UPDATE: Big Drudge headline, "U.S. Army Says It Intends to 'Kill or Capture' Sadr." (Now appearing only in Drudge archives, but I don't know why.)

MORE: According to two reports which look reliable, Hezbollah has had an armed and growing presence in Iraq for some time. In January, exiled Iraqi dissident Zainab Al-Suwaij said that on her return to Iraq, she was shocked to see Hezbollah operating right under the coalition's noses:

"I was surprised to see an office for Hamas in Nasariah, and also a Hezbollah office in Basra and Safwan," said Zainab Al-Suwaij, a Shiite Muslim native of Basra. "I was shocked to see their flag and their sign there, and I was wondering what is going on. Do we as an Iraqi people, who are emerging from the terror of Saddam after 35 years, need this in our country?"

She said Hezbollah has been operating in Safwan, a town on the Kuwait border, for about four months. "The building is secure with guards and weapons," she told a forum at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

.... Al-Suwaij said the political wings of Hamas and Hezbollah are recruiting Iraqi youth with seminars that impart their ideology. "Don't the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) or the (occupation) authorities there know about these offices?"

She said the occupation authorities and the CPA should close the offices. "These are not Iraqi groups," she said, and they are not geared to participatory democracy. "We know what their thoughts and ideas are."

Hezbollah was initially excluded from the US "war on terror" in the aftermath of 9/11. Concerned that violence in south Lebanon would disrupt American efforts to secure Arab support for the war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration assured Damascus that it would not explicitly target Hezbollah as long as it refrained from violent provocations against Israel. However, after Hezbollah broke a three month lull along the border with two attacks in October, President Bush called the movement a terrorist group of "global reach" and, the following month, added Hezbollah (along with several Palestinian groups) to its "priority list" of terrorist organizations, threatening sanctions against foreign banks that decline to freeze their assets. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice went so far as to warn that Lebanon's refusal to cooperate could jeopardize its "integration into the world economy" and even threaten its economic "survival." Rumors circulated in Beirut that the Bush administration was canceling all US aid to Lebanon and working to "torpedo" the upcoming Paris-II donor conference, a vital source of handouts for Lebanon's debt-stricken government.

Neither happened, as the Bush administration soon turned its attention to Iraq and focused on winning Syrian support for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, but diplomatic efforts were made to isolate Hezbollah internationally and administration hawks continued to berate Hezbollah, as if to warn Assad of the direction American policy might take if he remained uncooperative. In a September 2002 speech at the US Institute of Peace, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called Hezbollah the "A-team" of terrorists, with a "blood debt" to the United States (a reference to the US embassy and marine barracks bombings in Beirut in the early 1980s, which left hundreds of Americans dead), and vowed that its "time will come." Neoconservative media outlets in the United States portrayed Hezbollah as the next al-Qaeda.

GOOD NEWS (AT LEAST, BETTER THAN BERKELEY....): According to Mark Steyn, the insurgency is a "tempest in a teacup" which the military can handle with relative high-tech ease. As to being hated, Steyn notes his surly reception in Fallujah, but says, "I've had worse welcomes in Berkeley." (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

AND MORE: Interesting mutual assessment -- of Hezbollah by the U.S., and of George W. Bush by Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah:

Some officials in the Bush Administration are worried that the worsening security situation in Iraq may encourage Hezbollah to extend its support to the emerging Iraqi resistance.

That concern was demonstrated last month at a Washington conference organised by the US State Department and attended by analysts from the CIA and Defence Intelligence Agency, along with Western, Arab and Israeli experts, to debate Hezbollah's potential for fomenting resistance in Iraq.

Sheikh Nasrallah expressed amusement at the thought of Hezbollah causing so much consternation in Washington, but insisted that the Iraqis needed no help from his organisation. "The Americans have a lot of illusions and are always trying to link any internal movement with external factors," he said. "What is taking place in Iraq is a completely Iraqi issue. I don't think they (the Iraqis) need the assistance of anyone."

For Sheikh Nasrallah, the US casualties in Iraq resemble the fate of Israeli troops who became bogged down in Lebanon in the 1980s. He predicted that the Iraqi resistance would be unable to get rid of American forces within a year, but if the flow of body bags continued "they may be able to remove George Bush from the White House".

And for those few readers who enjoyed the first Hezbollah video, here's another one, showing the same black uniforms, headgear, and white gloves. The black uniforms date from the infancy of Islam; they were part of a Mehdi army psywar campaign during the Abbasid caliphate struggle.

But as to the white gloves, I wish someone would clue me in.

I'm no expert on Islamo-fashionism!

GEEK QUESTION: Nor am I an expert on computers! But I love to tinker, and here's a puzzle for any geeks who might be reading. That last video would not stream after I uploaded it via WS_FTP. I had uploaded the earlier one directly through the MovableType "UPLOAD FILE" feature and it streamed fine. Then I remembered that when I installed MT Blacklist I had to change the WS_FTP settings from binary to ASCII. So, I changed the settings back to binary, then uploaded the file again in WS_FTP, over-writing the file. It now works. Can anyone tell me why? (My assumption is that RealAudio files must be sent in binary, but this is just guesswork, as I've no formal computer training.)

Any information greatly appreciated.

I see that "a binary file transferred as ASCII is no longer the same file." Is that why you sometimes get a whole screen of gobbledygook when you try to "stream" stuff at certain web pages?

STILL MORE: Via Dean Esmay's link to Tony Blair's remarks in the Observer, I found myself drawn to Andrew Sullivan's reflections on seeing this through:

I do not blame those who claim they opposed the war and so feel no reason to come up with proposals today to help us win this particular, crucial battle. But you can still appeal to their better side, to make the case that, regardless of how we got here, we still have an absolutely critical obligation to see it through. That's why I'm waiting to see what John Kerry has to say. Forget every campaign ad. How he reacts to this current crisis is the single thing to keep in mind in considering him as the next president. Is he going to play partisan games? Or is he going to rise to the occasion, present himself as an alternative war leader and not someone who will find a way to delude Americans that they are not at war?

FOR EXAMPLE: Kerry might start by addressing comments like this remark by a Mujahideen fighter:

“If John Kerry wins the election and withdraws the Americans troops from Iraq, and maybe just leaves a few in bases, then we will not fight. But Bush we will always fight.” (Via Little Green Footballs.)

Our country has reached a very sad point. I am old enough to remember Vietnam and remember the divide in the country. I saw the protests, I read the papers and watched tv and I never remember that divide being so unfixable. There was always a common road to walk on back then; we all loved America, we all loved Freedom. I doubt very much that is true right now. I asked my father about those days, thinking that perhaps I was too young at the time and I didn't see the complexities of the protests or my parents protected me from the real ugliness. Sadly, that's not the case. And everyone I spoke to this weekend - from Vietnam vets to Vietnam protests vets - said this same thing - this is much uglier. Much darker.