Iran War: Turning on our ally?

Gareth Porter debunks Bush's attempts to lump together violent Sunni Salafist groups of the Al Qaida type together with with Iranian-inspired Shi'a militant groups like Hizbullah:  Terrorist Network Disconnect TomPaine.com 09/13/06.  He writes:

George Bush’s new argument that Iran and Hezbollah are part of the same terrorist network as al-Qaida turns the recent history of international politics on its head to cover up a truth that makes the Bush administration extremely uncomfortable.

In two speeches on August 31 and September 5, Bush said there is no difference between Iran and Hezbollah, on one hand, and al-Qaida, on the other, as terrorist enemies of the United States. This is fraud so brazen that it makes even the outrageous 2002 Bush administration effort to portray Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden as allies pale by comparison.

Porter's piece gives a good glimpse at the complications that the current Cheney-Bush administration's effort to pressure and threaten Iran are actually causing for the fight against the Sunni Salafist terror groups.  As the history he recounts briefly reminds us, Iran and the United States shared a common interest in opposing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Al Qaida terrorists they were sheltering.

And, in fact, Iran actually did cooperate with the US in combatting Al Qaida and in the Afghanistan War:

When the United States sent its forces into Afghanistan, it was allying with the existing Iranian-supported anti-Taliban coalition forces rather than creating something new. In fact, the United States could not have gotten rid of the Taliban regime without the help of Iran. Not only did Tehran allow the United States to transport food and humanitarian goods across Iran’s territory, but gave the Bush administration advice on the sociopolitical cleavages in Afghanistan and, according to James Risen’s State of War, even what targets to bomb. ...

Contrary to the propaganda pumped out by Rumsfeld from 2002 to 2004, accusing Iran of harboring al-Qaida cadres, within the first few months after the collapse of the Taliban, Iran had arrested 80 percent of the group of cadres who had been associated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which had crossed the border to hide in Iran. That account was given by high-ranking al-Qaida member Saif al-Adel, posted on an al-Qaida website in mid-2005. The al-Qaida leader declared, "The steps taken by Iran against us shook us and caused the failure of 75 percent of our plan.”  (my emphasis)

Iran has also backed the Shi'a-majority government in Iraq, where Bush says we're fighting a crucial front in the Global War of Terror by backing that same government.