The war drums beat on.

According to Sydney Morning Herald reporters Ian Traynor and Jonathan Steele, diplomats in Europe are increasingly concerned that the United States is planning to attack Iran. "The clock is ticking," one diplomat said according to the Morning Herald. "Military action has come back on to the table more seriously than before. The language in the US has changed."

That language has included Bush administration warnings to Iran not to interfere in Iraq. Iran responded to those warnings on January 28 by announcing plans to increase its "aid" and other activities in Iraq. Pointedly announcing, "We have experience of reconstruction after war," Iranian ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qumi said, according to the New York Times, that his nation would "greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq--including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital."

Iranian intentions are undoubtedly less than honorable. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been an outspoken opponent of both the United States and Israel, saying that both nations will be destroyed. On January 23, for instance, the Iranian Fars News Agency reported: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mualem here on Tuesday assured that the United States and the Zionist regime of Israel will soon come to the end of their lives."

Of course, Bush's warnings to Iran not to interfere ignore the fact that the post-Saddam regime we are supporting in Iraq is already closely tied to Iran. (See "How Much Time on the Front Line" in the February 5 issue of TNA.)