Iranian Radicals Want to Buy Manchester United?

Gateway Pundit has the story.

I am not a big Manchester United Fan (Fulham is my EPL team), but still I am glad that Man. U. owners have dismissed the notion out of hand.

Iran Attacks British Forces in Iraq?

A troubling development from the Sun:

IRANIAN forces are being choppered over the Iraqi border to bomb Our Boys, intelligence chiefs say.

Military experts claim this worrying move means we are at WAR with Iran in all but name.

Last night an intelligence source told The Sun: “It is an extremely alarming development and raises the stakes considerably. In effect, it means we are in a full on war with Iran — but nobody has officially declared it.

“We have hard proof that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have crossed the border to attack us.

“It is very hard for us to strike back. All we can do is try to defend ourselves. We are badly on the back foot.”

Agence France Presse is also reporting on the matter, based largely on the Sun report.

If this turns out to be true, that situation in Iraq, already a complicated matter at best, has become infinitely more complex. Although long suspected of directly supporting paramilitary and insurgent activities in Iraq, Iran had more or less kept its military in Iran, now it appears as though that may no longer be the case. The question remains whether or not the U.S. and Britain can keep Iran out of the way--a prospect looking dimmer by the minute.

Update (3:55pm): Bad reporting by the British papers, this claim debunked by Confederate Yankee. Still though, we do have a legitimate concern that Iran could get involved on a more explicit level.

Why I Like Newt Gingrich

None of this pussy-footing around, diplomacy crap: via Hugh Hewitt (Hat Tip: Tammy Bruce and Mark Steyn:

HH: Now let’s get to the first major issue of the day, which is Iran. Mr. Speaker, if the United Kingdom feels obliged to use force, if diplomacy fails to get their people back, will you applaud?


NG: I think there are two very simple steps that should be taken. The first is to use a covert operation, or a special forces operation to knock out the only gasoline producing refinery in Iran. There’s only one. And the second is to simply intercede by Naval force, and block any tankers from bringing gasoline to Iran…


HH: Would you do, would you urge them…


NG: And say to the Iranians, you know, you can keep the sailors as long as you want, but in about 30 days, everybody in your country will be walking.


HH: So how long would you give them, to give them that ultimatum, the Iranians?


NG: I would literally do that. I would say to them, I would right now say to them privately, within the next week, your refinery will no longer work. And within the following week, there will be no tankers arriving. Now if you would like to avoid being humiliated publicly, we recommend you calmly and quietly give them back now. But frankly, if you’d prefer to show the planet that you’re tiny and we’re not, we’re prepared to simply cut off your economy, and allow you to go back to walking and using oxen to pull carts, because you will have no gasoline left.


HH: I agree with that 100%. Would your recommendation to the United States President be the same if Iran seized our forces?


NG: Absolutely. I mean, the reason I say that, it is the least violent, least direct thing you can do. It uses our greatest strength…you know, the mismatch in Naval power is absolute. And so you don’t have to send troops into Iran. Everybody on the left is waiting for conservatives to say things that allow them to run amok and parade in San Francisco, and claim that we’re warmongers. I want to avoid war by intelligently using our power to eliminate the option of sustaining an economy, so that the Iranian dictatorship will be shown to be the hollow dictatorship it is, so the people of Iran decide they’d like to have a decent government with real electricity and real gasoline, so they overthrow it. And I want to do that without risking a single American life, or being engaged in a single direct confrontation. And Naval power lets you do that.

Now it is easy to say that when standing on the sidelines, but it is a fabulous idea.