Not a lot that I get to label a post ironic, but here’s a good example of one. A group inside Iran set off an explosion, the 2nd in three days, but that’s not the interesting part…

The small terrorist group Jondollah claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, FARS reported. The group has a history of launching attacks at Iranian border posts. IRNA reported that five people, including a failed suicide bomber, were arrested after the attack.

According to FARS, Iranian officials said the explosives used in that attack were manufactured in the United States. CNN could not verify those claims.

Now this could be some interesting angling from a few directions. Using the presumption that the 81mm shells are genuine Iranian weaponry, what we have is a possibility that, if this isn’t a lie, that the United States could be painting Iran into a corner.

As the weapons came from Iran, but the government is denying responsibility, if they continue to throw up their hands and claim innocence of the matter, then they have no way to make the United States stop supplying more weapons to terrorists inside Iran (let’s not mince words, this is terrorism).

After all, if it’s not your fault, then it’s not ours. For Iran to claim that it’s the US’s responsibility if weapons are used inside Iran would implicitly admit that it’s their responsibility if weapons get into Iraq.

Let’s go from the other side now. Ignoring superconspiracies like Iran used Iraqi insurgents to get United States manufactured weapons into Iran for the purpose of being used in a terrorist attack that caused no damage, simply claiming that the weapons were from the US could get themselves off the hook.

There are a hundred ways weapons from the United States could get into Iran, supplying from the US military is only one. In order to defend themselves from accusations of blatantly illegal aggression, the United States will have to provide explanations for how the weapons could have gotten in there without pinning responsibility on themselves.

In doing so, the US would then immediately validate Iran’s defense, via a simple “Well if this isn’t YOUR fault, how can you say that’s OURS?” At best the United States could call them on this gambit, accusing Iran of “wagging the dog” in order to give themselves cover to continue what they’re doing.

The nature of this depends on where it originated. If it’s a genuine report and the United States did get those weapons into Iran, then we look at the former conclusion. If it’s a lie or an otherwise Iranian setup, the latter.

It’s worth noting, however, that excluding the little clause above, it seems apparent that Iran is NOT trying to goad a war with the United States, but much more likely that this would be to avoid such a thing. The US, however, seems more interested in STARTING a war.

I hesitate to say this could be direct evidence of that, unless the commanders are saying things like “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander!!” which strikes me as so ill-thought-out I can’t imagine that’s the case. However, the fact that US aggression into Iran is a much greater catalyst of US/Iranian war that Iranian aggression into Iraq. After all, the latter case doesn’t technically involve us, it could be an attempt to exert Iranian dominance in the Middle East.