Is War With Iran Closer?

A Bush administration diplomat tells reporters that Iran is supplying weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Are the Bushies getting closer to war?

PARIS - A senior U.S. diplomat accused
Iran on Tuesday of transferring weapons to Taliban insurgents in
Afghanistan — the most direct comments yet on the issue by a ranking American official.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, speaking to reporters in Paris, said Iran was funding insurrections across the Middle East — and "Iran is now even transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan."

"It's a country that's trying to flex its muscles, but in a way that's injurious to the interests of just about everybody else in the world," he said. "I think it's a major miscalculation."

In Afghanistan last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Iranian weapons were falling into the hands of Taliban fighters, but stopped short of blaming the government itself.

Iran's possible role in aiding insurgents in
Iraq has long been hotly debated, and last month some Western and Persian Gulf governments charged that the Islamic government in Tehran is also secretly bolstering Taliban fighters.