McCain Says It's "Common Knowledge" That Iran Is Training Al Qaeda

During another photo-op flying visit to Iraq, John McCain told reporters that it is well known that Iran is training Al Qaeda terrorists, a patently ludicrous claim that had to be immediately corrected by his traveling circus.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

The Washington Post reports:

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

As anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the conflict in Iraq and middle eastern politics knows, the insurgents now endlessly referred to as "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" are composed of mostly Sunni militants pitched in violent battle against Shi'ites and, by proxy, U.S. forces.

The reigning leaders in Iran are Shi’ite and have welcomed the emergence of a Shi'ite-led government in Iraq. To suggest they would also somehow train Sunni militants is totally backwards.

Indeed, Al Qaeda affiliated right wing terror groups in Iran are very much allied against the Ahmadinejad government and routinely carry out attacks aimed at Iranian soldiers and state figures.

Furthermore, the Bush administration has long asserted that elements of the Iranian security forces have been training and supplying weapons to Iraq's Shi'ite militias, a claim Iran vigorously denies.

McCain has been harping on about how much of an expert he is on foreign policy for the last two weeks, urging voters that he is the best candidate to "answer a phone ringing in the White House late at night". Yet his latest comments clearly indicate that he is, at the very least, somewhat confused by the very basics of middle eastern politics.

Remember this is the man who only last year was singing about bombing Iran during appearances.

This is also the man who believes it is fine for US forces to remain in Iraq for the long term, even if that is 100 years, a claim he repeated this week on his visit there.

However, given that he has also declared that the Iraq war "will be over soon" it seems pertinent to ask the question does he even know what he's saying half the time?

We shouldn't really be surprised at McCain's comments however, given that President Bush didn't know the difference between Sunni & Shiite Muslims until two months before the invasion of Iraq and the incoming chairman of a congressional intelligence committee said Al Qaeda prominently came from the Shia branch of Islam.

One could almost forgive McCain's bumbling confusion, when you also acknowledge the fact that in some cases it is the US, along with other Western controlled Military Intelligence outfits, that is arming Sunni Insurgents in Iraq and also using Sunni "Al-Qaeda" terrorist groups to foment chaos in Iran.

These operations undermine the entire war on terror as a monumental hoax that is being exploited purely to realize a geopolitical agenda. McCain is clearly another complete puppet, in the mold of Bush, whose job it is to sell a black and white fairytale of "good vs evil".

infowars