An act of war?

ABC News: Iraq weapons: made in Iran?

March 6, 2006 — U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.

They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.

What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures — certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.

"The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production," says explosives expert Kevin Barry. "So it's the same make and model."

U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.

So what are we going to do about it? Iran seems to be counting on its ability to incite an uprising in the Shiite south and its ability to shut down a massive portion of the world's oil flows to deter us from responding to this and to their rapid nuclear buildup. At some point in the not too distant future we are going to have to fish or cut bait. a) Either bail out of Iraq and let a nuclear armed Iran set up a Islamofascist thugocracy in Iraq, b) bail out of Iraq and then bomb the Iranians into the stone age and then have two countries in disarray (and not pumping oil) for the foreseeable future [which would sure make our good pals Hugo Chavez and the House of Saud happy]), or c) perhaps the worst of the alternatives try to hold Iraq and invade Iran (while praying that China and North Korea behave while we are thoroughly tied down for a decade) which may have an end result not far removed from a or b.

(h/t Patterico