Wag the dog in desperation
By Michael J.W. Stickings
There will be war with Iran? Why? Because Bush needs it. Badly. And because the warmongering neocons need it. Badly. For Bush, it is a matter of popularity, legacy. For the neocons, it is a matter of credibility. The Iraq War has been bad for business, pretty much destroying everyone affiliated with it. And the destroyed now need to destroy. Something, anything -- and Iran is the obvious target.
And, what's worse, Bush and the warmongering neocons don't seem to have learned a thing from the Iraq War. They still think they're right about everything, Iran included.
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Here's the latest evidence of what is almost surely to come:
1) As the BBC is reporting, the U.S. has arrested seven Iranians in Baghdad, all with the Iranian Electricity Ministry. Iran claims they were there on business, an official visit, something about a power station. The U.S. military has refused to comment on the matter. (See also The New York Times.) The U.S. has for some time been trying to connect Iran to the violence in Iraq. Is this latest incident part of that campaign?
2) As Think Progress is reporting, Bush said in a speech to the American Legion today that "technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust". Just as Iraq was supposedly an imminent nuclear threat before the Iraq War, so is Iran now supposedly an imminent nuclear threat. Bush and his fellow warmongers got it wrong then, badly wrong. They are wrong now, and similarly irresponsible in ratcheting up the blood-curdling rhetoric. It was Bush today, but it's been Cheney in the recent past.
3) As The Raw Story is reporting, a new study (pdf) by two British security and arms experts "concludes that the US has made military preparations to destroy Iran's WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W. Bush giving the order... Any attack is likely to be on a massive multi-front scale but avoiding a ground invasion."
**********
One war has been lost (Iraq), one war has been forgotten (Afghanistan), and now there may soon be a third. The record speaks for itself, but the man who launched those two wars still has the power to launch another one. War with Iran would be a terrible idea under any circumstances -- a last resort, if that. It is especially terrible given the motivating forces: desperation, personal and political alike, and righteous ideological delusion.
As the Fred Thompson character, Admiral Josh Painter, puts it so bluntly in The Hunt for Red October: "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it."
The war, the Iran War, will be waged over there, massively, but the ramifications will be felt around the world.
If you didn't think the Bush presidency could get any worse, think again.
There will be war with Iran? Why? Because Bush needs it. Badly. And because the warmongering neocons need it. Badly. For Bush, it is a matter of popularity, legacy. For the neocons, it is a matter of credibility. The Iraq War has been bad for business, pretty much destroying everyone affiliated with it. And the destroyed now need to destroy. Something, anything -- and Iran is the obvious target.
And, what's worse, Bush and the warmongering neocons don't seem to have learned a thing from the Iraq War. They still think they're right about everything, Iran included.
**********
Here's the latest evidence of what is almost surely to come:
1) As the BBC is reporting, the U.S. has arrested seven Iranians in Baghdad, all with the Iranian Electricity Ministry. Iran claims they were there on business, an official visit, something about a power station. The U.S. military has refused to comment on the matter. (See also The New York Times.) The U.S. has for some time been trying to connect Iran to the violence in Iraq. Is this latest incident part of that campaign?
2) As Think Progress is reporting, Bush said in a speech to the American Legion today that "technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust". Just as Iraq was supposedly an imminent nuclear threat before the Iraq War, so is Iran now supposedly an imminent nuclear threat. Bush and his fellow warmongers got it wrong then, badly wrong. They are wrong now, and similarly irresponsible in ratcheting up the blood-curdling rhetoric. It was Bush today, but it's been Cheney in the recent past.
3) As The Raw Story is reporting, a new study (pdf) by two British security and arms experts "concludes that the US has made military preparations to destroy Iran's WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W. Bush giving the order... Any attack is likely to be on a massive multi-front scale but avoiding a ground invasion."
**********
One war has been lost (Iraq), one war has been forgotten (Afghanistan), and now there may soon be a third. The record speaks for itself, but the man who launched those two wars still has the power to launch another one. War with Iran would be a terrible idea under any circumstances -- a last resort, if that. It is especially terrible given the motivating forces: desperation, personal and political alike, and righteous ideological delusion.
As the Fred Thompson character, Admiral Josh Painter, puts it so bluntly in The Hunt for Red October: "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it."
The war, the Iran War, will be waged over there, massively, but the ramifications will be felt around the world.
If you didn't think the Bush presidency could get any worse, think again.
Labels: film, George W. Bush, Iran, Iraq, neocons
5 Comments:
Michael, I wanted to stay in denial about this, and now you are not letting me. When you lay out evidence like this, the argument is persuasive. The only question becomes, when?
By Carol Gee, at 7:23 AM
Why would they learn from Iraq? From his speech last week, they didn't learn anything from Vietnam either (other than how to avoid fighting in it themselves).
By Edward Copeland, at 10:24 AM
Sorry about that, Carol. Just reporting the facts. When will there be war? When it's politically expedience for the White House, maybe as early as this fall.
Good point, Edward. Perhaps I should have said this: They haven't learned anything from anything. Period.
By Michael J.W. Stickings, at 10:36 AM
Sure they have - they've learned that apocalyptic rumblings and jingoism and accusations of weakness and treason always work. They've learned that no matter the degree of protest, it can always be stifled. They've learned that they can get away with anything.
They've learned from Communist demagogues and Fascist demagogues; dictators and emperors and authoritarians of all sorts.
We haven't learned to tell truth from fiction or to see through fallacies and fabrications. We fall for it every time and they know it.
By Capt. Fogg, at 1:30 PM
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By cicicocuk, at 7:09 PM
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