A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was "absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb" if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do," and "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy."
The only legacy will be millions dead from radiation and hospitals filled with babies afflicted with serious birth defects. "Courage" doesn't enter the equation. No one is going to be "saved." This is pure "Dr. Strangelove" lunacy.
10 comments:
Oh great, here we go again. Only Iran's how much larger than Iraq?
"A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was "absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb" if it is not stopped."
Just like Bush was "absolutely convinced" that Iraq had WMD?
Iran is the regional bad ass of the Middle East: those assholes don't take shit from anybody. If we fuck with them all hell's gonna break loose. I'M absolutely convinced of that.
"Bring it on"?
I have a theory that Iran has been Bush's target all along. Taking Iraq was just practice, along with establishing a forward base of operations.
>>"But, of course, the Bush administration is not famed for its adeptness at contingency planning."<<
Are you sure-perhaps nuclear war is Bush's answer for global warming!??
Has anyone ever stopped to consider that the following statement...
"The real problem, as Hersch points out in his New Yorker "Fact" article this week, is not just that the Bush administration is planning to seriously fuck with Iran but that some of that fucking is likely to be nuclear."
... should actually read:
"The real problem, as the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia have pointed out, is not just that the Iranian administration is planning to seriously screw with us, and has been doing so for years, but that some of that screwing, from the looks of things, is likely to be nuclear."
Make no mistake - if this blows up in our faces (no pun intended), it won't be our fault. It will be Iran's.
Just because the Bush administration may have been wrong about WMD and Iraq does not mean that it's wrong about Iran - especially when pretty much all of the major Iraq skeptics (i.e. France, Russia, Germany) are in agreement as to the threat this time.
Diplomacy is the preferred option, of course (and if you think the Bush administration really wants a war with Iran these days, you're a conspiracy loon in my opinion), and the one being pursued - but, at the end of the day, if it comes down to Iran being allowed to have nukes or Iran not being allowed to have nukes, and the latter requires the use of force, then so be it, because by that point the alternative will be worse.
PK
I think the fear of Iran having nuclear bombs is well placed, but really are we not simply delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later any country that wants nuclear power will have it. The technology is out there to be used; it is only a matter of the will to use it and our stomping around in Iran's backyard, must certainly be contributing to tht will.
"The real problem, as the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia have pointed out, is not just that the Iranian administration is planning to seriously screw with us, and has been doing so for years, but that some of that screwing, from the looks of things, is likely to be nuclear."
I think Iran just has it in for Israel. They may hate the U.S., but they're not going to start a nuclear war with us unless we strike them first.
"Just because the Bush administration may have been wrong about WMD and Iraq does not mean that it's wrong about Iran - especially when pretty much all of the major Iraq skeptics (i.e. France, Russia, Germany) are in agreement as to the threat this time."
Granted, but I think that Bush has a thing for the general idea of "going to war". He likes it. If he had his way, and if it were at all possible, he'd invade Iran without a second thought -- not because they're a threat to the rest of the world (although he may use this as a pretext), but because he wants to feel the power of shear and utter destruction at our disposal. "AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!" describes his mentality perfectly.
W. M. Bear:
On the one hand, you're correct - contemplating the use of nuclear weapons is appalling.
On the other hand, what do you think nuclear weapons are for? Show? At some point, any weapon is fair game in terms of use. The genie was let out of the bottle a long time ago.
In the end, if the UN Security Council shows some guts (i.e. Russia and China, because the UK and France are pretty much on board), and lowers a fairly significant diplomatic and commercial boom on Iran, and then makes it stick (which was sorely lacking in Iraq), it'll never come close to blows (unless Iran does something stupid, which is always possible for a regime that used to send children out to "clear" minefields).
Look at it this way - where did playing it soft get Clinton with North Korea? The lesson is that you have to nip this stuff in the bud early on, not 5 years later, when it's too late. That will require the UN Security Council to actually do what it was designed to do (by the United States, no less) all those years ago - act.
Paul
W.M.:
Actually, if the action is authorized by the UN Security Council, then there's no problem. In fact, that's what the Security Council was designed to do.
The sanctions regime against Iraq was a failure. All that it was doing was starving the Iraqi people, while allowing Hussein and his cronies, and their pals at the UN, and in certain European countries, to get rich. Meanwhile, he continually flouted the inspections regime, which was a condition of the ceasefire after the first Gulf War. Ultimately, the UN SC failed to enforce it's own will, so someone else did, successfully. The fact that there were probably no WMD (and I say probably because how can we know for sure) is irrelevant - without forcing the issue, either through full and effective inspections (which did not exist), or military action to back up the UN sanctions and inspections regime, how would we have ever known for sure?
Yes, Iraq looks like a lousy choice now, in hindsight, but that has a lot more to do with the mess the Coalition has made of the post-war occupation and reconstruction than it does with the original decision to make the UN Security Council mean something, even in the UNSC was unwilling to do so itself.
If the West had acted as resolutely when the League of Nations failed to enforce sanctions on Italy following the Ethiopian war, or Germany when it reoutinely flouted the Treaty of Versailles, maybe things would have turned out better in the 20th century. They couldn't have turned out much worse.
Paul
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