Okay, so the issue about whether or not Iran makes 81mm shells, I’m going to treat as a “yes, they do” kind of affair. Now then, Reuters made a big deal that Bush backed away from Iran accusations.

President George W. Bush on Wednesday backed away from a U.S. claim that Iran’s leaders directed an effort to give bomb devices to Iraqi militants and said he was not using the charges as a pretext for a war with Iran.

…

Bush said he was confident that the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, provided explosive devices to Iraqi militants but admitted he did not know if Iran’s leaders were behind the effort.

All right, had to get that out of the way immediately. Because the more important issue is not whether he’s going to pin the presence of explosives in Iraq on Iran’s leaders. What’s bothering me is his attitude concerning that.

But here’s my point: Either they knew or didn’t know. And what matters is that they’re there.

What’s worse: that the government knew or that the government didn’t know?

But the point I made in my initial speech in the White House about Iraq was — is that we know they’re there and we’re going to protect our troops. When we find the networks that are enabling these weapons to end up in Iraq, we will deal with them.

In fact, he repeats it later.

And I’d like to repeat: I do not know whether or not the Quds Force was ordered from the top echelons of government.

But my point is: What’s worse — them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and it’s happening?

Here’s a big, and I’d say better, question: what’s the point of asking that? It doesn’t matter which is worse, what matters is which is happening. If you’re going to take the attitude of “we’ll deal with the networks as we find them” then the rhetorical question is unnecessary.

The question seems to imply that he’s going to act the same way regardless of the answer, and that tells me we can look forward to more conflation of Iran and Iraq, more “we can’t take that chance” type of statements after a gun is found laying around that was manufactured in Iran back in 1982.

Also, to anyone who’s seen the video, our president needs to stop laughing when saying serious things. He’s smirking and chuckling when he says both of the above, and it makes those watching think he doesn’t take any of this seriously. Which he may not, now that I think about it.