MEET THE NEW WAR: The Bush administration is already manufacturing the myths to justify the attack on Iran. According to the NY Times:

Many of the new, more sophisticated roadside bombs used to attack American and government forces in Iraq have been designed in Iran and shipped in from there, United States military and intelligence officials said Friday, raising the prospect of increased foreign help for Iraqi insurgents.

But apparently the Grey Lady has learned a little from the lies it allowed Judith Miller to print unchallenged about WMDs, after she was fed them by advocates of the war. This time they at least bothered to ask for another opinion.

But some Middle East specialists discount any involvement by the Iranian government or Hezbollah, saying it would be counter to their interests to support Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgents, who have stepped up their attacks against Iraqi Shiites. These specialists suggest that the arms shipments are more likely the work of criminals, arms traffickers or splinter insurgent groups.

"Iran's protégés are in control in Iraq right now, yet these weapons are going to people fighting Iran's protégés," said Kenneth Katzman, a Persian Gulf expert at the Congressional Research Service and a former Middle East analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. "That makes little sense to me."

One of Iran's top priorities is to get the United States out of Iraq, which means keeping up the violence there. At the same time, that clearly works against their other goal, which is to get religious Shiites in power and keep them in power. Right now, popular support for the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, which is friendly toward Iran, is waning because it cannot deal effectively with the Sunni-based insurgency.

This doesn't necessarily mean the establishment's journal has finally come to its senses. I fully expect them to join the sycophantic chorus when Bush finally starts bombing Tehran, but at least they've thrown a small token gesture to the truth.