Deja vu

On the eve of a State of the Union address where an increasingly irrelevant president takes center stage in front of an increasingly hostile congress there is sure to be a bit of saber rattling regarding Iran and the administration's claim that they are providing "advanced weaponry" to our enemies in Iraq. Thankfully, today the L.A. Times makes a preemptive strike at the administration's hollow Iran rhetoric and the surprisingly "scant" evidence to support it.

For all the aggressive rhetoric, however, the Bush administration has provided scant evidence to support these claims. Nor have reporters traveling with U.S. troops seen extensive signs of Iranian involvement. During a recent sweep through a stronghold of Sunni insurgents here, a single Iranian machine gun turned up among dozens of arms caches U.S. troops uncovered. British officials have similarly accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs, but say they have not found Iranian-made weapons in areas they patrol.

Of course, the administration may be completely justified in making these claims, but their "lack of publicly disclosed evidence" leads us full circle to the year 2003 where the drumbeat into Iraq went unquestioned and the United States' credibility on all matters foreign got flushed down the toilet. And, of course, this empty Iran rhetoric may just be the saber rattling Bush apologists say it is and there is nothing to worry about, but if there is any publicly disclosed evidence that can be conclusively claimed it's that the GWB enjoys having his ego stroked by the neocons around him and that spells trouble for us and the rest of the world.

Read more, this is not extra credit, and, yes, it will be on the final exam.

Update: Glenn Greenwald has more.