Remember Amir Taheri? He's the White House favorite who peddled the story that Iran was requiring its Jewish citizens to wear yellow stripes. Chilling story, if true -- which it wasn't. Well, Taheri -- who's prone to claiming non-existent sources and "[making] generalizations of breathtaking sweep and inaccuracy" -- is at it again.

Iraqis can't wait to have more U.S. troops running through their neighborhoods. And guess who's to blame for the internecine violence that's driving the American escalation? Cindy Sheehan! No kidding.

From his op-ed in today's New York Post:

". . . Baghdadis say the population of [war-torn Baghdad neighborhoods] will greet the American troops with sweets and flowers.

The fear that the United States, bedeviled by internecine feuds, might cut and run has been at the root of the violence since Iraq's liberation in 2003.

Jihadists have fought not because they hope to win on the battlefield, but to strengthen the antiwar lobbies in the United States and Britain."

Ever since neocon Amir Taheri was caught red-handed fabricating a story about an Iranian law that forced Jews to wear a yellow stripe, we vowed to keep an eye on him. Sure enough, just two weeks after his bamboozle was revealed, he visited the White House with other Middle East "experts" to advise the President.

And lo! If you happened to peruse the pages of The London Times yesterday, under a headline alarmingly titled "God's Army Has Plans To Run the Whole Middle East," you would have found Taheri proclaiming that "The mini war that is taking place between Israel and Hezbollah is, in fact, a proxy war in which Iran’s vision for the Middle East clashes with the administration in Washington."

"The real issue," Taheri wants us to know, "is who will set the agenda for the Middle East: Iran or America?"

As James Wolcott points out, Taheri's column was promptly picked up by the National Review Online and other conservative high traffic sites. Missing in those enthusiastic posts, however, was any mention of the column's author.

Two weeks ago, Amir Taheri published an op-ed in Canada's National Post about an Iranian law that forced Jews to wear a yellow stripe. The story, reminiscent of Nazi Germany, quickly provoked outrage, but was just as quickly revealed to be a total fabrication. It also ran in the New York Post.

Apparently this is just the sort of reliable advice that President Bush needs. Yesterday, Taheri had a face-to-face with the President as one of a small group of "experts" on Iraq that visited the White House.

According to Press Secretary Tony Snow, the experts were invited to the White House for their "honest opinions" on Iraq.