Tom Engelhardt: Iranian Commando Team Operating Near US!!h

The Fars News Agency has confirmed with the Republican Guard's North American Operations Command that a new elite Iranian commando team is operating in the US-Mexican border region. The primary day-to-day mission of the team, known as the Joint Special Operations Gulf of Mexico Task Force, or JSOG-MTF, is to mentor Mexican military units in the border areas in their war with the deadly drug cartels. The task force provides "highly trained personnel that excel in uncertain environments," Maj. Amir Arastoo, a spokesman for Republican Guard special operations forces in North America, tells Fars, and "seeks to confront irregular threats." The unit began its existence in mid-2009, around the time that Washington rejected the Iranian leadership's wish for a new diplomatic dialogue. But whatever the task force does about the Unites States, or might do in the future, is a sensitive subject with the Republican Guard: "It would be inappropriate to discuss operational plans regarding any particular nation," Arastoo says about the US. Okay, so I made that up. Sue me. But first admit that, a line or two in, you knew it was fiction. After all, despite the talk about American decline, we are still on a one-way imperial planet. Yes, there is a new US special operations team known as Joint Special Operations Task Force-Gulf Cooperation Council, or JSOTF-GCC, at work near Iran and, according to Wired magazine's Danger Room blog, we really don't know quite know what it's tasked with doing, other than helping train the forces of such allies as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia!