A story running on Christmas Day is by definition down the Memory Hole before the ink is dry. Or so some people would like to have it. Let's grab this one by the scruff of the neck and pull it back up and take a look: Is This The Hook They've Been Waiting For?

The American military is holding at least four Iranians in Iraq, including men the Bush administration called senior military officials, who were seized in a pair of raids late last week aimed at people suspected of conducting attacks on Iraqi security forces, according to senior Iraqi and American officials in Baghdad and Washington.

The Bush administration made no public announcement of the politically delicate seizure of the Iranians, though in response to specific questions the White House confirmed Sunday that the Iranians were in custody.

Gordon D. Johndroe, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said two Iranian diplomats were among those initially detained in the raids. The two had papers showing that they were accredited to work in Iraq, and he said they were turned over to the Iraqi authorities and released. He confirmed that a group of other Iranians, including the military officials, remained in custody while an investigation continued.

You have to follow the details here carefully, and it helps to have been reading Juan Cole regularly so as to be familiar with the dramatis personae here. But the short of it is, some Iranian diplomatic, and yes military, personages were on a high level but low publicity trip to talk to Iraqi Shiite authorities, including our hand-picked Best Buddy. And we grabbed some off the street and others out of the home of our aforementioned Best Buddy, of course in a country where the culture says that "hospitality" is the highest virtue there is and protection of a guest is sacred above even one's family.

And whatever claims we made of respect for Iraqi sovereignty are out the fucking window, and any chance for bilateral negotiations for improved relations between Iraq and Iran have just been shot to hell by Big Daddy George. And oh yeah, check the quotes in this. This is Steve Hanley's operation, our soi-disant Secretary of State is not even mentioned in passing. None of the quote attributed to "senior administration officials" sound remotely like anything she's ever said.

Steve Hanley. Last of the Unrepentent Neocons. They are laying the groundwork for justifying the deployment of the two carrier task forces in or near the Persian Gulf these days. The Eisenhower just got there and as I recall there was another one that left San Diego around the same time back in October, might have been the Enterprise but it's late and I'm too steamed to do a lot of research.

This is a setup and they are using the cover of Christmas to pull it off. Sorry as hell to lay this on you but dammit you know this is a fucking psychopath we're dealing with here. Do some yelling now or live with the might-have-beens when it's too late. At least go read the damn story so it gets up on the NYT's 'most read pages' column okay?

The Enemy never celebrates holidays, dammit.