Provocation

This is serious stuff.

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. . .

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.

"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."

The current Iranian government has gone out of its way to poke a sharp stick in the collective eye of the West over the past several months. It is time to bring a containment foreign policy approach out for an encore performance. There really are not any other good options in this dangerous game with a dangerous and unpredictable adversary.