Christmas present: Smoking gun? Iranian officials detained in Iraq

American forces in Iraq have captured and detained Iranian officials whom they suspect of planning or directing attacks inside Iraq. This is a potentially explosive development at a particularly tense time in the Iraqi-Iranian-American love/hate triangle.

The United States is now holding, apparently for the first time, Iranians who it suspects of planning attacks. One senior administration official said, “This is going to be a tense but clarifying moment.”

“It’s our position that the Iraqis have to seize this opportunity to sort out with the Iranians just what kind of behavior they are going to tolerate,” the official said, declining to speak on the record because the details of the raid and investigation were not yet public. “They are going to have to confront the evidence that the Iranians are deeply involved in some of the acts of violence.”

[ ... ]

The predawn raid on Mr. Hakim’s compound, on the east side of the Tigris, was perhaps the most startling part of the American operation. The arrests were made inside the house of Hadi al-Ameri, the chairman of the Iraqi Parliament’s security committee and leader of the Badr Organization, the armed wing [Number 8 on the top 10 signs you may belong to a terrorist organization. -- ed.] of Mr. [Abdul Aziz al-] Hakim’s political party [Sciri, an Iraqi Shiite party].

I won't go into the New York Times' usual "let's not be hasty and rush to judgment" reporting in the article because it's to be expected. But suffice it to say that if there's a shred of evidence that justifies the continued detention of these guys, the consequences will be profound.