"Fisk remembers the near sinking of the USS Stark by an Iraqi fighter jet in 1987. Because Iraq was a U.S. ally at the time, President Ronald Reagan blamed Iran -- even though it was clear that nation had nothing to do with the event, he notes. "It was an interesting precedent," Fisk writes sourly. "When Iraq almost sank an American frigate, Iran was to blame. When al Qaeda attacked the United States fourteen years later, Iraq was to blame.""