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Here we fucking go again

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 4:14 pm
by Xenu
"We want to solve this issue diplomatically and we're working hard to do so," Bush told reporters. He called for a unified international effort in dealing with Iran but refused to rule out a military strike if diplomacy fails.


And this time we mean it.

Funny, though. This time we really, truly do have the "Downing St. Memo" equivalent before the shit hits the fan.

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:03 pm
by Rspaight
The rhetoric is about exactly where we were in the summer of 2002. Hyping the threat, getting people scared, seeding the hysteria in the media, insisting that military force is a last resort and that saying we're going to do it is "speculation," etc., etc.. All exactly the same.

Bush is determined to do "something" about Iran before he leaves office. Nothing Iran does will stop him from considering them a threat. I'd say the odds are definitely favoring bombing nuke facilities. The big question: will he bomb conventionally and settle for hindering Iran's progress, or go nuclear to try to knock out the whole program?

A ground war seems unlikely, since the military is overwhelmed already. But if he thinks Iran will meekly accept bombing, I think he's mistaken. If he bombs Iran, Iraq and Lebanon will erupt, and Israel will be under siege in a way that makes the current situation look like a bridge tournament. (Iran's best buddies: Iraqi Shiites, Hezbollah, and Hamas.)

And if we won't nuke Iran's uranium enrichment facilities, Israel just might.

It will be interesting to see if the administration even bothers to seek a force authorization resolution from Congress, or just starts bombing.

Ryan

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:55 pm
by seth
What about the Iranian nutjob's rhetoric about "annihilating" Israel?

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:58 pm
by Rspaight
Well, rhetoric and $60 will buy you a Beatles box.

More seriously, Khamenei's in charge of the country and has been for a long, long time. He's probably as much of a hard-liner as Ahmadinejad, but the point is that Iran being anti-West and anti-Israel is nothing new. Ahmadinejad is a convenient bogeyman, but he's throwing red meat to his radical base as much as anything. (Iran's economy is benefitting from high oil prices, and this is making Ahmadinejad popular.)

What it all comes down to, just like Iraq, is what the threat posed by Iran truly is, and what the options are to deal with it. Once you've accepted that the only choices are invasion or capitulation to the oncoming Islamic horde, then the administration's tactics have worked.

In the case of Iraq, Bush clearly wanted regime change more than he wanted to contain Saddam. So far, he's following the same script here.

Ryan

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 9:03 pm
by Xenu
What he said.

If that Iranian nutjob attempts to try anything with Israel, two things will happen:

a) He's suddenly gone from "maybe threat" to "actual threat to our allies," and
b) Israel will kick the shit out of him.

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:18 pm
by Rspaight
Scott Ritter (the former Marine, top aide to Schwarzkopf, Iraq weapons inspector, lifelong Republican, knew there were no WMDs *before* we invaded, branded a traitor by the Bushies, that Scott Ritter) has weighed in on this question:

The 2002 national security strategy—which the Bush administration used as a blueprint for initiation of a policy of… regional transformation in the Middle East—only mentioned Iraq once, and yet it was used as a document to set forth the events that led to the invasion of Iraq. The 2006 version of this mentions Iran 16 times as the No. 1 threat to the security of the United States of America. And it does not reject a preemptive war of aggression. In fact, in addition to not rejecting it, or not ruling it out, it embraces it; despite how bad things have gone in Iraq, it continues to say this was the right thing to do. Left with that, I don’t think anyone could question the motivation of the Bush administration, which is to continue with regional transformation policies in the Middle East that revolve around regime change, which means that’s what our goal is vis-à-vis Iran.

That’s why when I speak of Iran, I say be careful of falling into the trap of nonproliferation, disarmament, weapons of mass destruction; this is a smokescreen. The Bush administration does not have policy of disarmament vis-à-vis Iran. They do have a policy of regime change. If we had a policy of disarmament, we would have engaged in unilateral or bilateral discussions with the Iranians a long time ago. But we put that off the table because we have no desire to resolve the situation we use to facilitate the military intervention necessary to achieve regime change. It’s the exact replay of the game plan used for Iraq, where we didn’t care what Saddam did, what he said, what the weapons inspectors found. We created the perception of a noncompliant Iraq, and we stuck with that perception, selling that perception until we achieved our ultimate objective, which was invasion that got rid of Saddam. With Iran, we are creating the perception of a noncompliant Iran, a threatening Iran. It doesn’t matter what the facts are. Now that we have successfully created that perception, the Bush administration will move forward aggressively until it achieves its ultimate objective, which is regime change.


The whole interview is worth reading:

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=4281

Ryan