Bush Administration claims Iran is arming the Taliban

UPDATED

I suppose it's too much to ask that a news story would point out the fundamental logical flaw in this claim from Bush administration war mongers:

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, speaking to reporters in Paris, said Iran was funding insurrections across the Middle East _ and "Iran is now even transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan." The comments marked the most direct accusation yet on the issue by a senior American official.

The Taliban are Sunni fundamentalists. The Iranian government is controlled by Shiite fundamentalists. They are mortal enemies. Literally. If you doubt that, just look at the fighting in Iraq. Most of the blood being shed is in fighting between the Sunni and the Shia.

I'm sorry, but I simply do not believe that the Shia in Iran are supplying weapons to the Sunni in Afghanistan. I believe this to be a lie. It is disappointing and frustrating to see the Associated Press reporting this obvious lie with complete credulity, without an ounce of skepticism. This kind of journalistic malpractice is exactly what helped lead to the occupation of Iraq. Have they learned nothing?

UPDATE

A longer version of the story on the Washington Post website buries this paragraph in the middle of the piece:

Iran, which is also in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program, denies the Taliban accusation, calling it part of a broad anti-Iranian campaign. Tehran says it makes no sense that a Shiite-led government like itself would help the fundamentalist Sunni movement of the Taliban.

Indeed.

It's nice that the AP is willing to include Tehran's "they said/they said" denial that it is arming the Sunni Taliban, but the point deserves more than two sentences buried between several paragraphs of credulous stenography from the Bush administration. The point is actually significant and verifiable enough to undermine the claims of those who are transparently and dishonestly agitating for war against Iran. A conscientious reporter who went so far as to Google the words "Iran" and "Taliban" might stumble across something like this September 18, 2001, item in Time:

Iran is implacably hostile to the Taliban over that movement's extremist theology and over its killing of Afghan Shiite Muslims. In 1999, Iran almost went to war against the Taliban after its militia killed eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist after capturing a predominantly Shiite town, and has worked together with Russia to support anti-Taliban opposition forces. Despite the overtures between the reformist president Mohammed Khatami and the West on ways of cooperating against terrorism, hard-line spiritual leader Ayatollah Khameini insisted that while Iran condemned the terror strikes in the U.S., Tehran could not support U.S. military action against Afghanistan. Still, whether working directly with the U.S. or not, Iran remains a key regional player in the anti-Taliban alliance.

Or, this item in USA Today from June 9, 2005:

Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards fought alongside and advised the Afghan rebels who helped U.S. forces topple Afghanistan's Taliban regime in the months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the guards' former leader says.

[...]

Even before U.S. forces entered Afghanistan, Iran backed the Northern Alliance, a loose coalition of warlords and militias from the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara minorities. The alliance fought the ruling Taliban, a regime dominated by majority Pashtuns that imposed a harsh Sunni Islamic government.

Current and former U.S. troops and officials confirm Iranians were present with the Northern Alliance as U.S. forces organized the rebels in 2001.

Or this item, from just eight days ago, as reported by Reuters:

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday the United States has no evidence Iran's government is behind a flow of weapons from Iran to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

On his second visit to Afghanistan since taking over the Pentagon in December, Gates met Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who also said there was no evidence Iran was supplying the Taliban.

At the very least, the body of published journalism challenging Burns' absurd claim should motivate the AP to question the illogical assertion that Iran is arming the Taliban. Instead, the claim is reported with no more skepticism than met the administration's shifty justifications for invading Iraq. Credible refutations of pro-war talking points, including those from the Bush administration's own Secretary of Defense, are simply ignored. Meanwhile, the United States gets dragged steadily along toward another unnecessary war.

Same as it ever was.