Saturday's New York Times featured Scott Shane's page-one article about Iran's "mysterious" Quds Force. American intelligence agencies are scutinizing the Quds Force because of its apparent involvement in supplying sophisticated explosives to Iraqi insurgents. Quds operatives are in fact hard at work inside Iraq. The article's thesis -- that there is some doubt about the Iranian government's responsibility for the activities of the Quds Force -- hangs on this quote from Secretary Gates:

“We know that the Quds Force is involved,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters on Thursday. “We know the Quds Force is a paramilitary arm of the I.R.G.C.,” he added, using the abbreviation for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“So we assume that the leadership of the I.R.G.C. knows about this,” Mr. Gates said. “Whether or not more senior political leaders in Iran know about it, we don’t know.”

Is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps an arm of the Iranian government? Are we aware of any freeleance activity ever undertaken by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? It was certainly diplomatic of Secretary Gates to leave open the hypothetical possibility that the Quds Force is not an instrument of Iranian government policy, but the New York Times's hanging a story on the possibility left open by Secretary Gates is a laughable exercise in selective credulity. Kenneth Timmerman addresses the subject in a New York Post column today.

Secretary of State Rice is also engaged in diplomatic activity. She is about to meet with Mahmoud Abbas and seeks to induce the prospective "unity government" to utter the magic words recognizing Israel, renouncing terror and honoring previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements in order to obtain American recognition. Israel's diehard left-wing paper Haaretz has published an interview with Secretary Rice. Does the United States have any second thoughts about the participation of Hamas in the elections that brought it to power? Here is Secretary Rice's answer:

"The United States has more faith in the democratic process than that. Yes, elections produced an outcome that was complicated. Perhaps even an outcome that we might not even have liked. But you know we don't have a policy in the United States that says you only get to have an election if you elect people that the United States agrees with. That is not our policy. And this is a long process of the Palestinians coming to terms with the multiple factions in the Palestinian territories. The multiple views in the Palestinian territories of how to relate to Israel, the multiple views on how to get to a two-state solution.

"I don't regret for a moment giving the Palestinian people or supporting the Palestinian people in making an electoral choice. But with electoral choice comes responsibility, and what we have been saying since the day that the elections took place is that election is one thing and it was free and fair and we acknowledge that. But the responsibility then is to have a government that can actually govern, a government that can be responsive to the needs of the Palestinian people. And those needs are going to be best met in a two-state solution. And to have a two-state solution you simply must recognize the right of the other party to exist.

"The Palestinian people, I think like the Israeli people, recognize that a normal life would be a life in which there are two states living side by side in freedom and in peace. I am convinced that the great majority of Palestinians, the great majority of Israelis want exactly that. Now, eventually, I think a democratic process will reflect that underlying desire for peace. But we can't shortcut that process. The desire for peace has to be underpinned by some fundamental principles, and those fundamental principles include a renunciation of violence, the recognition of the right of both parties to exist, and adherence to international agreements. That's why the Quartet principles are still important. That is why we are continuing to reaffirm them."

It is painful to read Secretary Rice's comments trying to square the circle as she maintains the legitimacy of the participation of terrorist groups in a democratic political process. Among today's mysteries -- even more mysterious than the warrant under which the Quds Force is operating -- is how it is that no one at Haaretz thought to sound out Secretary Rice on that proposition, and how she continues to confuse it.

UPDATE: A reader has forwarded the photo above since I posted these comments this morning. Related: "How Yasser Arafat got away with murder."

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