Andrew Sullivan in the Times of London:
Some cynics argue that George Bush is playing a small, domestic game of keeping the ordeal [Iraq] going so that the next Democratic president can be accused of losing Iraq – not him. But this theory, while not totally implausible, does not quite fit with the messianic ambitions of the president and apocalyptic fears of Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Okay, so Andrew Sullivan doesn’t have any special insight. But the word has definitely gotten out that Dick Cheney is frothing at the mouth to make more evil. There’s not a constant amount of evil in the world, you know. It’s not a zero-sum game. Cheney makes evil where evil did not previously exist. And his brush-clearing sidekick is too eager to go along. Here’s the news coming out today.
Helene Cooper in the New York Times:
Mr. Cheney and hawks in his office, however, have become increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of progress in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Allies of Mr. Cheney continue to say publicly that the United States should include a change in Iran’s leadership as a viable policy option, and have argued, privately, that the United States should encourage Israel to consider a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Julian Borger and Ian Black in the Guardian:
The US has called a meeting of major powers in Washington next Friday to discuss Iran’s defiance of UN resolutions calling for its suspension of uranium enrichment. It comes amid signs that the Bush administration is running out of patience with diplomatic efforts to curb the nuclear programme. Hawks led by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, are intensifying their push for military action, with support from Israel and privately from some Sunni Gulf states.
“Washington is seriously reviewing plans to bomb not just nuclear sites, but oil sites, military sites and even leadership targets. The talk is of multiple targets,” said Mr Cronin. “In Washington there is very serious discussion that this is a window that has to be looked at seriously because there is only six months to ‘do something about Iran’ before it will be looked at as a purely political issue.”
Philip Sherwell and Tim Shipman in the U.K. Telegraph:
Now it has emerged that Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, who has been pushing for a diplomatic solution, is prepared to settle her differences with Vice-President Dick Cheney and sanction military action.
In a chilling scenario of how war might come, a senior intelligence officer warned that public denunciation of Iranian meddling in Iraq – arming and training militants – would lead to cross border raids on Iranian training camps and bomb factories.
Not convinced? How about this?
Wesley Clark in the Washington Post:
Think another war can’t happen? Think again. Unchastened by the Iraq fiasco, hawks in Vice President Cheney’s office have been pushing the use of force.
There is still a possibility that this is all part of a game to pressure Iran to do anything from backing off in Iraq to abandoning their civilian nuclear power research. But with rhetoric this heated, things can quickly spiral out of control. Consider this:
Iran’s leaders have so far shown every sign of relishing the confrontation. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared yesterday that American policies had failed in the Middle East and warned: “I am certain that one day Bush and senior American officials will be tried in an international court for the tragedies they have created in Iraq.”
That doesn’t sound like a man that is thinking about backing down. The U.K. Telegraph article has some alleged inside baseball.
Miss Rice’s bottom line is that if the administration is to go to war again it must build the case over a period of months and win sufficient support on Capitol Hill.
The Sunday Telegraph has been told that Mr Bush has privately promised her that he would consult “meaningfully” with Congressional leaders of both parties before any military action against Iran on the understanding that Miss Rice would resign if this did not happen.
If you read through the publicly available evidence against Iran (varying from their nuclear ambitions and capabilities to their malevolent role in Iraq) the evidence is as weak or weaker than the case that was made against Iraq.
These articles attempt to address this problem, but they really just show that Bush and Cheney hope to instigate a war.
Philip Sherwell and Tim Shipman in the U.K. Telegraph:
In a chilling scenario of how war might come, a senior intelligence officer warned that public denunciation of Iranian meddling in Iraq – arming and training militants – would lead to cross border raids on Iranian training camps and bomb factories.
A prime target would be the Fajr base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in southern Iran, where Western intelligence agencies say armour-piercing projectiles used against British and US troops are manufactured.
Under the theory – which is gaining credence in Washington security circles – US action would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities and even its armed forces.
Julian Borger and Ian Black in the Guardian:
Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism chief who is now a security analyst, said: “The decision to attack was made some time ago. It will be in two stages. If a smoking gun is found in terms of Iranian interference in Iraq, the US will retaliate on a tactical level, and they will strike against military targets. The second part of this is: Bush has made the decision to launch a strategic attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, although not before next year. He has been lining up some Sunni countries for tacit support for his actions.”
Evidence of Sunni backing?
But a belief has been growing in Iran, which administration officials have pointedly not tried to stem, that the Bush administration was considering military strikes against Iran. An Israeli airstrike in Syria last week kicked up speculation in the Iranian press that Israel, in alliance with the United States, was really trying to send a message to Iran that it could strike Iranian nuclear facilities if it chose to.
“If I were the Iranians, what I’d be freaked out about is that the other Arab states didn’t protest” the airstrike, said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The Arab world nonreaction is a signal to Iran, that Arabs aren’t happy with Iran’s power and influence, so if the Israelis want to go and intimidate and violate the airspace of another Arab state that’s an ally of Iran, the other Arab states aren’t going to do anything.”
George Perkovich might be freaked out, but the Iranians might be something else:
The Iranians also have reason to be sceptical. They hear some of the rhetoric coming out of Washington and conclude that, whatever they do, they will be attacked. So they may conclude that the only course of action is full acceleration towards a nuclear deterrent.
Considering how far Iran is away from actually having a nuclear bomb and how close we are to having a new administration, we cannot allow this attack on Iran to go on in the next 16 months. We can’t hope that Condi Rice will resign, or that her resignation will prevent an attack. We have to impeach, convict, and remove this administration. Don’t say it can’t be done. It has to be done. Or it’s Armageddon.
