There is more and more evidence that the war for Iran is in the "brewing" stage (We have moved an extra carrier to striking distance, Patriot missiles into Iraq and Admiral Fallon is now in charge of CENTCOM) and will soon get very hot; either because we provoked them in Iraq or because we conduct an attack on their nuclear sites. To this point, I am torn.
First, if Iranians are in Iraq making devices which are killing American soldiers, as is claimed in this article, we have to find them and put them out. As long as we are in Iraq, we have to fight to defend ourselves. Now, I believe we should leave Iraq but if we are there, we must defend ourselves. However, the problem is that the United States Government and President Bush specifically have no credibility. Because of his lies and deceit going into Iraq he has lost any credibility of any claims he is making about Iran. So, what do we do? Do we give him the benefit of the doubt or do we fight him on this? It is a tough choice because if we fight him and it turns out he is right, American soldiers will have died. But if we do not fight him and he turns out to be wrong, we will just be fools once again as most were in March of 2003. So you know where I stand, I am in the camp of defend ourselves as we are leaving the Country. Not an offensive move but a defensive retrograde move.
I believe two major items are going on. First, the President is daring Iran to fight us. He is encouraging their further aggressive behavior by deploying provocative weapons systems and by ignoring the call to engage them politically. Second, he is doing this in part to cover for the sins of his disastrous move into Iraq. If this turns into a full scale "defend Iraq against Iran" war, then he will hope that all the mistakes made by him in Iraq will be a long distant memory.
First, the provocation is explained. This article titled Bush's Iraq Plan: Goading Iran into War highlights all the moves Mr. Bush is making right now in preparation for war with Iran. First, it is clear that Bush has not only ignored the Iraq Study Group recommendations, he actually has thrown them out and burned them. It is over. After all, what the hell does James Baker know about anything? We have the President of a baseball team running the Country now! The fact that James Baker made a career of working with foreign governments is meaningless. Bush has decided that military provocation is better than political engagement with Iran; that much is clear.
Second, the deployment of weapons systems (Patriot Missile) which have nothing to do with defending against insurgents in Iraq and everything to do with defending against missile attacks from Iran is interesting. The Patriot Anti-Missile battery deploying does nothing to stop insurgents. However, combined with an additional air craft carrier group going to the Mideast, the story becomes well understood. Imagine, you are sitting in Tehran and your enemy in words sends weapons to blow your missiles out of the sky and a carrier which can bomb your land to your coast, what would you assume?
The second topic about Bush covering for the sins is all but proven. If he can get this to be a wider scale war with Iran he can accomplish a major task for his government. He wants to somehow show the American public that he was right all along and that there were "foreign influences" which drove the insurgency. If he can do that then he can go back and say, "We were treated as liberators but it was the other guys who mucked it up for us". By taking this provoking actions, when and if Iran does respond, it will get so confusing that we will never know who did what to whom.
The attacks on Iran and the potential war it will create fall right at the feet of George W. Bush. He was the one who issued the orders despite the fact that the Iraqi foreign minister that the Iranians were working in an Iraqi Government approved office which was about to become a consulate.
What is scary and very sad about all this is that Bush is willing to get young men and women killed to try to solidify his place in history. It is no longer about the men and women dying, it is about what will the history books tell us about Bush's legacy. Right now, it is a comic tragedy in our history books.
I am really starting to wonder if we have a deranged person leading our Country. He is a "born again" and don't the hard core evangelicals believe that the Mideast will blow up in a fiery Armageddon which will then bring the second coming of Christ and the end of the world? Something like that anyway. I am wondering if this guy believes that so much that he is helping it to happen.
Anyway, Bush has no credibility in the world or the United States so unfortunately, even if he is right this time (Every blind squirrel finds an acorn...), he will never get the benefit of the doubt. And, unfortunately, the Iranians and Syrians know that.