A couple days ago I remarked that the Iran NIE was nothing more than a base to be spun into a pretense for war. Subsequent reactions from the Bush administration, the neocons, and Israel have all but confirmed this: if anything, war with Iran is even more likely now than it was last week.
How is that possible? Well, simply put, the NIE never mattered to the neocon plan to attack Iran. It was released, and subsequently spun like a washing machine on a roller coaster. But the Bushies were never counting on the nuclear angle to attack Iran. The NIE directly disputes the “serious Village wisdom” about Iran, i.e. Tehran being an imminent threat of a nuclear holocaust. But the reasons we’ll attack Iran are going to be different.
The casus belli for the coming strikes on Iran have been and will continue to be Iran’s interference in Iraq. We’re one border incident away (much like the Israeli-Lebanon conflict) from war with Iran. The NIE has done nothing to alleviate that. If anything because the neocons so badly want war with Iran, efforts will now be more focused than ever on provoking that border incident.
The nuclear threat that Tehran supposedly possesses (and now has been dismantled) was always secondary to questions of a direct international act of war. That’s always been the plan, as Bush’s inept foreign policy team has been unable to solicit more than sanctions against Iran for enriching uranium. China, Russia, and France have been reluctant to take any further action other than token gestures.
The real fear is that now, with the NIE out having completely sandbagged the nuclear angle, the increasingly desperate neocons will now turn to the “border incident” theory in earnest. With the curtain closing on the administration and the economy stalling out, power is slipping away from the neocons. They’re getting more restless and more angry, and the pressure from both the neocons and the Israel hawks is ramping up from both inside and outside the administration.
The result may be a redoubling of efforts for a manufactured “Gulf of Tonkin” incident that the US will have “no choice” but to respond to with deadly force. There’s still more than enough time for that.
And even if Iran manages to not get hit under Bush, his successor may still choose to do so, especially should it be Giuliani or Hillary.
This NIE may actually be very bad news indeed.
