What To Do While The Clock Runs Out
Mr. Bush and company have roughly one year and five months left before vacating the halls of power. As was the case in 1968, the President will exit the White House with the nation at war, leaving the problem for another to solve. In the meantime, more American fighting men and women will perish, more Iraqis will perish, the world will become more insecure, and the divisions between its peoples will grow.
Over the next year and five months, one vital question remains with regards to US leadership: what will the President do about Iran?
To many, openly confronting Iran is a disastrous proposition. To others, the Iranians represent a regional threat that could not only destabilize Iraq, but thwart the supposed democratic infusion that the United States has championed since Iraq’s invasion.
The pretext for employing military force against the Iranians will come swiftly and most probably under the guise of needing to launch cross-border strikes to contend with Iranian armament facilities and Shia militia training camps. From this morning’s Telegraph…
“Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran, amid growing fears among serving officers that diplomatic efforts to slow Iran’s nuclear weapons programme are doomed to fail.
Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated programme of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran.
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.
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.
Senior officials believe Mr Bush’s inner circle has decided he does not want to leave office without first ensuring that Iran is not capable of developing a nuclear weapon.
The intelligence source said: “No one outside that tight circle knows what is going to happen.” But he said that within the CIA “many if not most officials believe that diplomacy is failing” and that “top Pentagon brass believes the same”.
He said: “A strike will probably follow a gradual escalation. Over the next few weeks and months the US will build tensions and evidence around Iranian activities in Iraq.”
Previously, accusations that Mr Bush was set on war with Iran have come almost entirely from his critics.
Many senior operatives within the CIA are highly critical of Mr Bush’s handling of the Iraq war, though they themselves are considered ineffective and unreliable by hardliners close to Mr Cheney.
The vice president is said to advocate the use of bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons against Iran’s nuclear sites. His allies dispute this, but Mr Cheney is understood to be lobbying for air strikes if sites can be identified where Revolutionary Guard units are training Shia militias.
Recent developments over Iraq appear to fit with the pattern of escalation predicted by Pentagon officials.
Gen David Petraeus, Mr Bush’s senior Iraq commander, denounced the Iranian “proxy war” in Iraq last week as he built support in Washington for the US military surge in Baghdad.
The US also announced the creation of a new base near the Iraqi border town of Badra, the first of what could be several locations to tackle the smuggling of weapons from Iran.”
What occurs behind the scenes in the event that the United States does unilaterally confront Iran will be just as impacting. It’s obvious that they will attempt to utilize pro-Western movements in the country as a force for destabilization, but despite the belief of men such Mr. Cheney that Iranians will rise up against their government and theocratic infrastructure en mass after the United States has used military force is a stretch. One only has to look that the percentage of Iranians that claimed they would defend their country’s right to develop nuclear power as a case against American wishful thinking. It should also not be forgotten that many Iranians are also not forgetful of the past and US complicities with regards to the Shah’s regime, nor British complicities for that matter.
It is, like the invasion of Iraq, a massive gamble; one that has a greater chance of galvanizing Iranian public defiance than it does their willingness to side with the objectives of a foreign invader. Iran, as some of you might recall, was once a democracy. And when their democratically elected leader refused to play ball with international oil interests, he was painted a Communist and a coup was engineered (see Operation AJAX) to remove him from power. Following that, democracy was not reinstituted, but rather the rule of a monarch, which should betray the sort of hypocrisy that the West has routinely displayed with regards to the Middle East. While the President champion’s democracy in Iraq, its neighbour, Saudi Arabia, remains anything but. And as we’re all aware, nary a word is mentioned about that beyond the fact that significant arms are to be provided them by the US.
Security, democracy, freedom – these are just words that mask our exploitative and imperial natures, and do so with alarming success. If Iran is to be militarily confronted, what then is the endgame? That it too will see the rise of a wholly American influenced government? That the United States will find itself in a much larger war in which insurgents in two different countries are arrayed against them?
Being that he’s the most powerful man in the world, I would assume that George Bush has the answers to such questions. Then again, given the fact that he’ll be retiring to his ranch in Texas in a little under a year and a half, does he need to?
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September 16th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Behold: the end of America.
September 16th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Going into Iran would have nothing to do with security and it will make the situation worse in Iraq just as Nixon bombing and invading Cambodia did in Vietnam. This is all about scaring Americans for political purposes and keeping an Iraq war going for as long as possible for financial purposes.
Also don’t forget that Russia backs Iran and tensions between the former Cold War(and nuclear armed) adversaries will increase even more.
September 16th, 2007 at 11:02 am
A good time for a re-release of Oliver’s Army with an american twist in the lyrics.
September 16th, 2007 at 11:38 am
How in the high hell does this seem like a good idea to anybody? A third conflict in the Middle-East? They don’t have the manpower, they don’t have the resources, and to stretch themselves any thinner would be lunacy. What will it take for the people to turn off the TV and put down their collective foot?
September 16th, 2007 at 11:38 am
I’d like to believe that all these stories are just posturing. It’s hard to see the American public supporing a war with Iran, but maybe it doesn’t matter.
September 16th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I’m telling you in two words: DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP!
Must I emphasize once again, that it worked with Bill Clinton? George Sr. gets elected out of office during a war in Iraq, then Mr. Clinton takes over and within 24 HOURS, the Iraq war is over!
Lighting can strike the White House twice…it has to, or else I’ll have to agree with misinformation:
[quote comment="26275"]Behold: the end of America.[/quote]
September 16th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
With war being waged in Iraq and Afghanistan, it only makes sense that Iran is the next target. Iraq-Iran-Afghanistan. It’s like playing connect the dots on a map of the world.
Or maybe Bush and his inner circle are under the impression that if they get conflict going in three adjacent countries, they’ll win the jackpot on the global slot machine. “3 Democracies!” they’ll shout. And the payout will magically bail the US economy out of its downward spiral.
What? You don’t think that going into Iran to protect Iraq is any more plausible, do you?
September 16th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
While I really can’t see the Bush administration being able to sell what would now be a third front to the so-called “War on Terror,” I can also see them secretly invading Iran, much in the way that Nixon invaded Cambodia during the Vietnam conflict, and likely with even more disasterous results.
The only way that they would even remotely be able to do so, considering how thinly we’re already spread, would be to reinstate the draft. Even though most people I know call such an action “political suicide, ” at this point, the current administration has nothing to lose, since Bush now cannot be re-elected
To those Americans who say that we cannot depose a leader in a foreign country, I would also tell them to look to Iran’s past, along with Cuba (even though that attempt failed), or even worse, the Congo/Zaire, where they were successful. That is, if you can call a corrupt, brutal dictator a success. Hell, the Republic of the Congo is still struggling with the results of that so-called “benevolence”
I really have to wonder if we’re this hellbent on our own destruction.
September 16th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
So, they’ll be … what… greeted as liberators?
Scratching my head here… something seems familiar but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
September 16th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
[quote comment="26286"]I’m telling you in two words: DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP![/quote]
Democrats dropped the bomb.
Democrats lead the charge into Viet Nam.
Barack Obama himself voiced his support for “surgical strikes” against Iran.
No matter who the ruling party is, war will always be on the agenda; it’s just too good for business.
September 16th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Too bad for all those starving and oppressed North Koreans that they don’t have oil, otherwise we’d be there in 5 minutes to “liberate” them too.
September 17th, 2007 at 11:42 am
I am uncertain of the current US administrations capability of waging a campaign in Iran right now. With troops being pulled back (perhaps in word only, and not yet in deed), it is going to be a very hard sell indeed to convince the right people that Iran needs an invasion. Sorry. “Liberation”.
I read an article recently in the September edition of The Atlantic (”Lessons of a Failed Presidency”) that not only summed up the current administration, it provided a quite clear snapshot into the current behind-the-scenes post-Rove. When I thought back on it after reading this article, I find myself wondering where the support would be shored up for Iran.
The article is available online, but because the issue is still on the newsstands, you have to be a subscriber to read it there (and so I didn’t link it)
September 17th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Because most of you will disagree with me here, let me ask you all this. Do you think the situation with Iran can be handled with diplomacy?
September 17th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
And before I answer that question, kanji, what exactly is “the situation with Iran”? Because frankly, that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people in a lot of different locations. Please be as specific as possible as to what you personally think “the situation with Iran” is, and then I’m sure that the other people would be in a much better position to comment on your query.
September 17th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
What I meant was in general. They have something of a maniac anti-semitic President, if they are training and supplying arms to rebels in Iraq that is anothe issue, then there is the whole deal with nuclear weapons as well; not to mention the radical Islamic government in place. Take your pick; I meant it as a general question. From what Ive seen, read, and heard, the wonderful anti-semitic President they have doesnt seem like the kind of guy you can talk out of things…I dont really see diplomacy working with them…..
September 17th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
I think the larger question one needs answered first, before remotely starting to consider if diplomacy would work in any situation here, is if any of the issues you mentioned would be better served by military action.
And if having a religiously fanatical leader who openly mocks other groups of people that he is not a part of, forcing large groups of people to bend to his theological beliefs through government policy and reform, supports the arms race by providing tax cuts and sweetheart government contracts to large organizations who both manufacture arms to be used in other countries as well as train mercenaries to be used in conflicts abroad, refuses to dismantle a nuclear program on the basis of a possible threat from other nations…..if all that is wrong….
Do you see where I’m going with this?
September 17th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Handling the situation with Iran militarily would be foolish, and its the generals saying that. It would be insane. It would destabilize the region infinitely more than it already is.
And do I really have to explain for the umpteenth time why Iran is not a threat to Israel?
September 18th, 2007 at 11:58 am
If by “destabilize” you mean “utter and total war through the entire region for decades, likely starting with the nuclear destruction of Israel in retaliation for US strikes”….you would be completely correct. If the US goes into Iran, the current regime has nothing to lose. And should nuclear weapons be used? It doesn’t limit it to the region anymore. Nations would be forced, through political agreements and obligations, to participate. 2000 deaths a month will seem like chump change in a worst case scenario Iran invasion.
Especially considering that the US would be willing to go to war over oil sanctions. I think it clearly shows the priorities of the US administration. It is not everything “in general”. It is unfettered access to oil, with lip service being paid to democracy.
Sometimes, kanji, diplomacy is the only option. Especially when the guns are winking at you and swearing that they won’t cause trouble.