I bet you thought Iran was itching to start something. I mean, they’ve been supplying weapons to Iraq and now they’ve kidnapped 15 British soldiers. But silly you, TIME is here to inform us that clearly it’s all Bush’s fault. Robert Baur’s article oozes with sympathy for the poor, persecuted Iranians and attributes nothing but sinister motives to the scheming Bush, who is apparently just looking for any old excuse for war.

You wouldn’t be wrong to wonder if Iran hasn’t lost its mind seizing the fifteen British marines and sailors, and in so doing, handing Bush a causus belli even he couldn’t have imagined.

I guess that whole threatening to destroy us thing just isn’t enough, so Bush has to try and imagine things!

ranian grievances, real and perceived, don’t stop there. Tehran is convinced the U.S. or one of its allies was behind the March 2006 separatist violence in Iranian Baluchistan, which ended up with twenty people killed, including an IRGC member executed. And the Iranians believe there is more to come, accusing the U.S. of training and arming Iranian Kurds and Azeris to go back home and cause problems. Needless to say the Iranians are not happy there are American soldiers on two of its borders, as well as two carriers and a dozen warships in the Gulf. You call this paranoia, they ask.

The Bush Administration is doing nothing to allay Tehran’s paranoia. With the largest build up in the Gulf since the start of this Iraq war, it’s actually fanning it. You have to wonder if Bush is counting on the Iranians over-reacting like they did when they seized our embassy in 1979. And lest we forget, this was driven by paranoia that we were plotting to destroy the revolution.

Well golly gee, I’m so sorry we’ve offended the Iranians so, what with our existing and all. Let’s give Robert Baer what he seems to so desire and just kill ourselves and get it over with.

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