A Spork in the Drawer

Moral Depravity

DeFib Dick had a plan:

HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

Anyone who maintains that Mr. Fourth Branch and his crew aren't a bunch of murderous sociopaths belongs in a deep prison cell. Preferably with Cheney and Addington and Libby &c.

Video at link.

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ADDED: I meant earlier to make mention of Gleiwitz and, domestically, Operation Northwoods. I don't know if Hersh is right (I wouldn't put anything past this administration) but such false-flag operations aren't unprecedented.

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America's Neville Chamberlain

Appeasement:

President Bush has authorized the most significant American diplomatic contact with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, sending the State Department’s third-ranking official to Geneva for a meeting this weekend on Iran’s nuclear program, administration officials said Tuesday.

This comes on the heels of news that the White House is considering a diplomatic office in Tehran.

President Bush makes the historic announcement.

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Shorter Lieberman

Ahmadinejad has marched into the Rhineland and we're next!

Is it just me or is Holy Joe becoming even more crazy? Mahmood is sounding like the sane one.

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Monday Poll

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Annals Of Dimbulbery

Apparently the rulers of Dubai are suggesting that Barack Obama and St. John hold a presidential debate in their corrupt little city-state.

The WaPo's David Ignatius thinks this is a sterling idea because it might teach the Iranians a thing or two.

Or something.

Ignatius is a bit of a dink, isn't he?

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Moles

Uhhh...this is kind of a major story:

Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have "been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service ... to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government," a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday.

So what was the response?

A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials' activities after only a month, and the Defense Department's top brass never followed up on the investigators' recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report said.

Shut down the investigation?

It gets better:

The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney's office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator.

[...]

The aborted counterintelligence investigation probed some Pentagon officials' contacts with Iranian exile Manucher Ghorbanifar, whom the CIA had labeled a "fabricator" in 1984. Those contacts were brokered by an American civilian, Michael Ledeen, a former Pentagon and National Security Council consultant and a leading advocate of invading Iraq and overthrowing Iran's Islamic regime.

Michael Ledeen would be one of the craziest neocons, Iran-Contra criminal (when we sold weapons to our mortal enemy Iran) and "Freedom Scholar" (whatever the hell that means) at the American Enterprise Institute.

Read the whole article - it actually gets worse.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the whole damned war was an Iranian operation. After all, they're the real winners of this clusterfuck.

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Nice Country You Have Here...

...be a shame if something happened to it:

"If Iran will not make the right choice, then it will face consequences," Rice said, without offering any details.

Now we have the putative Secretary of State talking like a cheap extortionist.

My, how far we've fallen.

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Shorter St. John

I'm happy to pander to the ignorance of the American public.

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Happy Anniversary!

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An Annual Spring Ritual Returns

Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran:

A second American aircraft carrier steamed into the Persian Gulf on Tuesday as the Pentagon ordered military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the "increasingly hostile role" Iran is playing in Iraq - smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops.

[...]

Targets would include everything from the plants where weapons are made to the headquarters of the organization known as the Quds Force which directs operations in Iraq. Later this week Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to confront the Iranians with evidence of their meddling and demand a halt.

If that doesn't produce results, the State Department has begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell the Iranians to knock it off - or else.

You just know that St. John would love a little October Surprise. And with this administration running things...

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Not Helpful

Hillary:

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

We've had 7+ years of the bellicose talk...couldn't we just dial it back a bit? For a little while, at least?

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Beating The War Drums Anew

Here we go again:

According to a new article by Thomas P.M. Barnett in the April issue of Esquire magazine (on newsstands March 12), Fallon may be prematurely “relieved of his command” as soon as this summer:

[W]ell-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don’t want a commander standing in their way.

Just in time for the November elections. Funny that.

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Son Of Wednesday Boot

Our old pal Max Boot is back on the pages of the LATimes, if only for a one-shot. Today, (yesterday, actually) Max comes to praise St. John not bury him. But first, Max gives us a setup:

Some conservatives are having conniptions over the rise of John McCain as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Personally, I am less interested in what Rush Limbaugh, Tom DeLay or Ann Coulter think than I am in the views of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar Assad and Kim Jong Il.

Max goes on to suggest we should call this terrible trio the new "axis of evil" but with Syria replacing that blooming democracy known as Iraq. And indeed, after explaining all the naughty things those naughty axis-of-evilers are doing, Max turns to the naughty things they are doing in Iraq - after mentioning, of course, just what a swell place that benighted country has become. But Max allows his sunny outlook to be polluted by some dissonance:

Clearly, these rogue regimes do not fear the consequences of waging a proxy war on America and our allies. They think they can get away with killing and maiming American soldiers -- and so far they have been right.

President Bush has not done enough to back up his threats against Iran and Syria, beyond pushing for economic sanctions of limited value at a time when oil is hitting $100 a barrel. The president has refused to authorize even limited special operations strikes on jihadist networks inside Syria or Iran.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Max calling for acts of war in that last sentence? Why yes, yes he is. But first:

This is part of a larger trend of Bush combining strong words with weak actions.

Noconservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. And the failure, friends, is George W. Bush. This make Max sad and he's now forced to find someone new, someone who will fulfill his war fantasies:

It is hard to see how Bush could reverse this decline in America's "fear factor" during the remaining year of his presidency. That will be the job of the next president. And who would be the most up to the task?

Whoever could be up to the task? Who? Who? Ahhhh...

To answer that question, ask yourself which presidential candidate an Ahmadinejad, Assad or Kim would fear the most. I submit it is not Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or Mike Huckabee. In my (admittedly biased) opinion, the leading candidate to scare the snot out of our enemies is a certain former aviator who has been noted for his pugnacity and his unwavering support of the American war effort in Iraq. Ironically, John McCain's bellicose aura could allow us to achieve more of our objectives peacefully because other countries would be more afraid to mess with him than with most other potential occupants of the Oval Office -- or the current one.

That's it! Elect St. John and the regimes in Iran, Syria, and North Korea will vacate power and turn themselves in to be tried and found guilty of being very naughty indeed.

And if they don't, well, St. John jsut might sing his favorite song.

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Don't Blow It (Up)

Tehran:

America’s image in the Middle East is as low as it has ever been. With the occupation of Iraq; the Israeli bombing of Lebanon; and Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, the United States has been cited in polls as the gravest threat to peace in the region. But Iran is different, even the Iran of someone like Mr. Gorbani, who works in a fundamentalist gift shop.

Generally speaking, Iranians like Americans — not just American products, which remain very popular, but Americans. That is not entirely new: Iranians on an individual level have long expressed a desire to restore relations between the countries. But the sentiment seems much more out in the open now.

Unfortunately, the neocons and other assorted "tough guys" (I'm looking at you, John McCain) see this as proof-positive that the Iranian people will cheer a rain of American bombs falling on their country.

That is why, Western diplomats in Iran said, the best thing Washington could do to encourage more moderate behavior in Tehran would be to ease off. Less pressure would make it harder for Iran’s leaders to keep out Western influences.

“Take the foot off the gas,” said a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to antagonize the Iranians.

That the "Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran" crowd is too deluded - or simply uncaring - to see this will remain a worry for at least the next 341 days.

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Falafel Of Death

Your FBI:

Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents. A similar project was aimed at Sunni Arabs in the Washington, D.C., area.

I enjoy a good falafel (no Bill O'Reilly jokes, please) and very much like Middle Eastern food in general. I guess that makes me a suspected terrorist.

Oh, it looks like I'm safe:

The brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials Phil Mudd and Willie T. Hulon, according to well-informed sources, the project didn’t last long. It was torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal.

I also like Risotto. Does that make me an Italian fascist? Some in the FBI might think so!

As ridiculous as it sounds, the groceries counting scheme is a measure of how desperate the FBI is to disrupt domestic terrorism plots.

Desperate? Do ya think?

The possibility of Iranian-sponsored terrorism in the United States has drawn major attention from the FBI because of rising tensions between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program.

Here's an idea: Don't freakin' attack Iran.

At any rate, it's good to know that some within the FBI are taking their jobs seriously. That said, the Feebs will have to pry the mujhadara from my cold, dead hands.

[Via BooMan.]

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The Pictures Say It All

He Who Must Not Be Questioned with a convicted criminal and alleged Iranian spy:

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Yes, But

So what might happen to the oil market if (when?) BushCheney attacks Iran? The WaPo takes a look:

A U.S. military strike against Iran would have dire consequences in petroleum markets, say a variety of oil industry experts, many of whom think the prospect of pandemonium in those markets makes U.S. military action unlikely despite escalating economic sanctions imposed by the Bush administration.

The small amount of excess oil production capacity worldwide would provide an insufficient cushion if armed conflict disrupted supplies, oil experts say, and petroleum prices would skyrocket. Moreover, a wounded or angry Iran could easily retaliate against oil facilities from southern Iraq to the Strait of Hormuz.

We already have this:

Continuing:

Oil traders said that even if the chances of military conflict with Iran were small, the huge run-up in oil prices that would result encourages some speculators and investment funds to bid up the price of oil, adding a premium of $3 to $15 a barrel.

"It will be chaos. . . . I can't really see it," said Abdulsamad al-Awadi, an oil trading consultant and former executive at Kuwait Petroleum. "Having been in the marketplace for almost 30 years, I can't see a scenario for it, or precautionary measures" that oil companies could take. "There are no precautionary measures."

The problem with these various oil traders and analysts is that they're thinking rationally. We already have ample evidence that those who are most pushing for an attack on Iran - the Cheneys, the Kristols, the Boltons - aren't rational.

Just something to keep in mind.

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The Roll Out Continues

Condi:

The Bush administration announced sweeping new sanctions against Iran Thursday — the harshest since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979 — charging anew that Tehran supports terrorism in the Middle East, exports missiles and is engaging in a nuclear build up.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, joined at a State Department news conference by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, said the steps the Bush administration is taking against the Revolutionary Guard Corps and a number of banks are designed, among other things, to punish Tehran for its support of terrorist organizations in Iraq and the Middle East.

Springtime in Tehran, anyone?

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Neither Stalin Nor Mao. And Not Hitler

Reformed war supporter Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek brings some sanity:

The American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. Norman Podhoretz, the neoconservative ideologist whom Bush has consulted on this topic, has written that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "like Hitler … a revolutionary whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it in the fullness of time with a new order dominated by Iran and ruled by the religio-political culture of Islamofascism." For this staggering proposition Podhoretz provides not a scintilla of evidence.

Definitely a must read, especially in light of Dick's weekend speech. Scott Horton:

Is Cheney threatening war against Iran? Yes, that’s exactly what he is doing. As Greg Djerejian reminds us, in the lead-up to the war against Iraq, Cheney gave a number of speeches making clear the intention to resort to arms against Saddam Hussein. And he used exactly the same language, including specifically the key phrase “serious consequences.” And note the focus on the Quds unit of the Revolutionary Guard. This is an exercise in target-practicing. As several sources have noted, Cheney has advocated targeting the Quds unit in the first bombing raids. He and his chief of staff David Addington have also advocated putting the Quds unit on the scheduled list of terrorist organizations, presumably for prior Congressional authorizations for the use of military force canbe drawn upon to justify the attack without the need to go back to Congress.

Last week over at Slate, Fred Kaplan discussed the frightening behind-the-scenes debate amongst generals and admirals about what to do if the order to attack Iran comes down.

May you live in interesting times, indeed.

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Headline Of The Day

Iran: CIA a 'Terrorist Organization'

1953? Sixteenth paragraph.

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Let Us Now Praise Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

For he has replaced Moveon.org as the Most Important Story Ever™.

Don't the Republicans have anything better to do, indeed.

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Going Off-Script

Whoops!

Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed regime in Tehran, a recently retired commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Monday.

John Abizaid, the retired Army general who headed Central Command for nearly four years, said he was confident that if Iran gained nuclear arms, the United States could deter it from using them.

"Iran is not a suicide nation," he said. "I mean, they may have some people in charge that don't appear to be rational, but I doubt that the Iranians intend to attack us with a nuclear weapon."

Wow. Someone is actually being rational about Iran. Of course, it's a RETIRED general but still....

Right now DeFib Dick is trying to figure out how to get Abizaid into his man-sized safe.

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Not Good At All

When I posted below about the live nukes that have caused a bit of a stir a thought crossed my mind but I decided not to pursue it.

Larry Johnson had the same thought, did some checking, and came up with some disturbing information.

Short version: Transporting nukes to Barksdale AFB is a very bad sign.

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UPDATE: Josh Marshall has has two sources who say that it was actually an accident.

Nonetheless, paranoia is a virtue these days.

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You Don't Roll Out A New Product In August

Juan Cole passes along an unconfirmed tip that DeFib Dick has ordered the selling of the Iran war to begin next week.

Given that on Tuesday George was going on about a "nuclear holocaust" should Iran continue with its nuke program we might want to take this seriously.

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Joy

Iran Guards warn U.S. of heavier blows ahead: report

Isn't the BushCheney administration fun?

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Lovely

Here we go again:

Cheney, who's long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran's complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said.

[...]

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opposes this idea, the officials said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has stated publicly that "we think we can handle this inside the borders of Iraq."

Should Dick win this internal debate (if there is indeed a debate) then you can be certain that "evidence" will magically appear.

Lea Anne McBride, a Cheney spokeswoman, said only that "the vice president is right where the president is" on Iran policy.

Somehow I'm not comforted by this.

[Via Laura Rozen.]

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Onward To Tehran!

And on it goes:

Iranian support for militias who are destabilizing Iraq has risen since the United States and Iran held a breakthrough round of talks in Baghdad in May, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq said on Tuesday.

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Oh Joy

Shifting again:

The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.

The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."

[...]

The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

[...]

"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

It's well established by now that Dick is clinically insane (maybe his multiple heart attacks cut off oxygen to his brain) and both he and George have nothing left to lose. The few demented sociopaths that comprise their base would be orgasmic from all of the destruction (not to mention that the fundies would see it as another step towards their beloved Armageddon). So, why not?

[Via C&L.]

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Golly

We all know that BushCheney love to go on about IranSyriaIranSyriaIranSyriaIranSyriaIranSyria but it's odd that they never seem to mention this:

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

[...]

Both the White House and State Department declined to comment for this article.

There's a surprise.

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Thanks, Again, Connecticut...

...for giving us this genius:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Sunday the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran's involvement in Iraq.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

There's no more funny with this guy.

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UPDATE: Vid here.

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Insane Cheney Update

Joe "Jokeline" Klein confirms Steve Clemons' report that DeFib Dick and the AEI are conspiring with Israel to attack Iran and adds a bit more.

Given that it's Joe Klein you might want to take this with a grain of salt.

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Civil War

No, I'm not referring to Iraq. This civil war seems to be raging within the BushCheney administration over a possible war with Iran. At least, that's my take from this Steve Clemens post:

The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf -- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.

Let's be clear about this: If Steve's reporting is accurate then the Vice President of the United States is conspiring with a foreign government to start a war against the policies of the United States.

Continuing:

According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the "right decision" when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands.

This would be something akin to a coup d'état and arguably high treason. CENTCOM commander Adm. William Fallon, who oversees the region, is quoted as saying, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box," referring to Cheney and his ilk.

It's long been clear that Dick Cheney is an extraordinarily dangerous character; but if all of this is true even that assumption is understating the case. The Office of Vice President is elected; he can't be fired. But the President can strip him of his powers (which isn't likely to happen) or the Congress can begin impeachment proceedings. I'd suggest an immediate investigation into this matter with an eye on prosecuting Cheney, figures within the American Enterprise Institute, and whoever else might be involved. And, again, if true, all US support for Israel should cease immediately.

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Watching For War

Off the coast:

The U.S. Navy staged its latest show of military force off the Iranian coastline on Wednesday, sending two aircraft carriers and landing ships packed with 17,000 U.S. Marines and sailors to carry out unannounced exercises in the Persian Gulf.

The carrier strike groups led by the USS John C. Stennis and USS Nimitz were joined by the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard and its own strike group, which includes landing ships carrying members of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

[...]

U.S. warships have frequently collided with merchant ships in the busy shipping lanes of the Gulf.

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Putting The Crazies Back In The Box

Gareth Porter writes:

Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush's nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.

Fallon's resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration's Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon's resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran.

One of the concerns about appointing Fallon to head up CENTCOM was that a career naval aviator overseeing two ground wars was a bit odd. However, any attack on Iran would largely come from aircraft carriers so it wasn't unreasonable to think that his appointment was in preparation for just such an attack. That would appear to have been wrong.

But Fallon, who was scheduled to become the CENTCOM chief Mar. 16, responded to the proposed plan by sending a strongly-worded message to the Defence Department in mid-February opposing any further U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as unwarranted.

"He asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted there was no military requirement for it," says the source, who obtained the gist of Fallon's message from a Pentagon official who had read it.

Fallon's refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch".

Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, "You know what choices I have. I'm a professional." Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."

Perhaps the military has tired of BushCheney's love of war as a solution for all things. And maybe this bodes well for the country and the world:

The defeat of the plan for a third carrier task group in the Gulf appears to have weakened the position of Cheney and other hawks in the administration who had succeeded in selling Bush on the idea of a strategy of coercive threat against Iran.

Anything - anything - that weakens DeFib Dick and his crew is a good thing.

If the Iraq War is the biggest foreign policy disaster in this nation's history Iran would be that times a hundred. It can only be a good thing if the military scuttles the insane plans of the madmen in the administration.

But I won't rest easy until at least 21 January, 2009.

[Via Think Progress.]

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WTF?

What the hell is George doing meeting with Mullah Dobson et al on the subject of Iran?

“I was invited to go to Washington DC to meet with President Bush in the White House along with 12 or 13 other leaders of the pro-family movement," Dobson disclosed on his radio program Monday. “And the topic of the discussion that day was Iraq, Iran and international terrorism. And we were together for 90 minutes and it was very enlightening and in some ways disturbing too."

[...]

“I heard about this danger [from Iran] not only at the White House but from other pro-family leaders that I met during that week in Washington," he said. “Many people in a position to know are talking about the possibility of losing a city to nuclear or biological or chemical attack. And if we can lose one we can lose ten.

"If we can lose ten we can lose a hundred," he added, “especially if North Korea and Russia and China pile on.”

Dobson goes on the scream, "Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!"

As Steven D says, "This is deeply disturbing on so many levels I don't know what to say [...]"

Two points: 1) Our fundies don't need to be convinced that blowing Iran up is a good idea; they're already down with that. And 2) Dobson and friends have no expertise in the matter so why is George conferring with them?

This is only reinforcing my belief that BushCheney, who have poll numbers in the toilet and investigations closing in from all sides, are willing to "throw the dice" and start another war in order to try and save themselves.

This is, again, disturbing on so many levels.

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A Sick Twist

St. John:

Disgusting.

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Video deleted from YouTube.

Hmmm...

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And now it works again.

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Chances Of This Happening?

Zero:

Better relations between Washington and Tehran would help Iraq and lessen the tendency of Iran to meddle in the affairs of its neighbor, the Iraqi government spokesman said on Friday.

Ali al-Dabbagh was speaking at a White House news briefing where he supported President George W. Bush's effort to resist a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and said a premature U.S. pullout would leave a power vacuum.

al-Dabbagh apparently hasn't noticed that BushCo™ doesn't "do" diplomacy. The three carrier battle groups near or nearing Iranian waters aren't on a sight-seeing cruise.

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All You Need To Know

Liberals respond to petty thuggery with indulgence

The infidels Allah is about to destroy, he first makes mad. I suspect that Mahmoud the Magnanimous (as journalist/blogger Jules Crittenden has dubbed the president of Iran) believes this. And with liberals taking his side against their own governments, who can blame him?

Words fail me.

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All Too Believable

After six years of our current government I believe this:

An Iranian diplomat freed last week after being abducted in Iraq in February has said he was tortured by his captors, including CIA agents.

Jalal Sharafi, the second secretary at Iran's embassy in Baghdad, told Iranian media the agents had interrogated him on his country's role in Iraq.

The White House denies:

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, accompanying President George W Bush in Texas on Saturday, denied any coalition role in the case.

"The United States had nothing to do with Mr Sharafi's detention and we welcome his return to Iran.

"This is just the latest theatrics of a government trying to deflect attention away from its own unacceptable actions," he said.

Until evidence proves otherwise I'm siding with Iran.

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Perfidious Albion

Charles "Squeaky Wheels" Krauthammer is a might upset that there won't be piles of burning corpses:

Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran's intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the impotence of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the United Nations -- that pretend to maintain international order.

[...]

Remember the great return to multilateralism -- the new emphasis on diplomacy and "working with the allies" -- so widely heralded at the beginning of the second Bush administration? To general acclaim, the cowboys had been banished and the grown-ups brought back to town.

What exactly has the new multilateralism brought us? North Korea tested a nuclear device. Iran has accelerated its march to developing the bomb. The pro-Western government in Beirut hangs by a thread. The Darfur genocide continues unabated.

And all of these things happened under the current administration. Chuckles doesn't see fit to mention that but instead blames everybody but George (and himself, natch).

Perhaps Krauthammer should prove his devotion to the Cause of War and volunteer to be the first weapon dropped on Tehran.

That would be nice.

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Submission And Humiliation

Greenwald:

Showing the planet that they're "tiny and we're not" really does sum up, almost completely, the entire neoconservative compulsion, which is the same thing as neoconservatism itself. As I've noted before, they talk about every foreign policy issue with themes of dominance, submission and humiliation as the centerpiece. It's the Abu Grahib Theory of Foreign Affairs, and it actually is quite uncomfortable even to read.

[...]

They always want war not for any ideological or geopolitical reason, but because war (or at least compelling submission through the threat of war) is the only real hard-core way to -- as Newt put it -- "show the planet that you're tiny and we're not." If you review any of their foreign policy arguments about war and terrorism, this is the sentiment animating all of it.

A quick look around the wingersphere demonstrates this quite nicely. The fact is, every dispute that doesn't end in piles of charred bodies is a humiliating defeat for the US.

While Glenn specifically doesn't go there, it does make one wonder about the psychology of these people. To call them "disturbed" would be an understatement.

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Good News For A Change

It looks like the nastiness between the UK and Iran is over:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that his government would free the 15 detained British sailors and marines as a gift to the British people.

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Do Ya Think?

U.S. strategy on Iran may have backfired

It seemed like a good idea at the time: Increase the military, diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran to get the country to bow to the international community on its nuclear enrichment program and curtail its alleged troublemaking in Iraq.

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Months of hard-nosed U.S. political and military pressure on Iran may have further radicalized and emboldened the regime, undermining Washington's stated aim of neutralizing the Iranian threat without resorting to war, analysts say.

You'd have to be naive to believe the administration's "stated aim" on anything.

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh's New Yorker articles detailing U.S. plans to attack Iran, and a Russian newspaper report specifying this Friday as the day for U.S. airstrikes have made the rounds of blogs and Persian-language satellite channels.

The rumors about an attack on Iran this Friday have been floating around for a couple of weeks now. I can't say I put much credence in them but what with the carrier groups floating around the area and the capture of the Brits - a deliberate provocation? - this weekend is as good a time as any from an administration persepective. At any rate, we'll know soon enough.

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Wheeee!

In the Persian Gulf:

The U.S. Navy on Tuesday began its largest demonstration of force in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by a pair of aircraft carriers and backed by warplanes flying simulated attack maneuvers off the coast of Iran.

The maneuvers bring together two strike groups of U.S. warships and more than 100 U.S. warplanes to conduct simulated air warfare in the crowded Gulf shipping lanes.

They're probably hoping for another Gulf of Tonkin.

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Oh Boy

Iran:

The Iranian military seized 15 British naval personnel in the waters off Iraq early this morning, the British Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

The British sailors were conducting what were described as "routine boarding operations" of a merchant marine vessel when they were surrounded by Iranian military boats and escorted into Iranian waters.

The British boarding operation, according to the ministry's statement, was authorized under a United Nations resolution and supported by the government of Iraq.

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ADDED: Steve Clemons:

But this is more evidence that America and Iran are poking each other through proxies. Iran is using these British military personnel to send signals to the U.S. -- and the U.S. has taken similar actions against Iran inside Iraq and probably along the Iran-Iraq border.

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Diplomacy!?

From BushCo™?

The United States agreed yesterday to join high-level talks with Iran and Syria on the future of Iraq, an abrupt shift in policy that opens the door to diplomatic dealings the White House had shunned in recent months despite mounting criticism.

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The first meeting, at the ambassadorial level, will be held next month. Then Rice will sit down at the table with the foreign ministers from Damascus and Tehran at a second meeting in April elsewhere in the region, possibly in Istanbul.

Field Marshal von Rumsfeld, since tossed overboard, infamously said, "we don't do diplomacy." But that was then.

Robert Parry:

But one source told me that the resistance – from the Pentagon, Blair and even Democrats in Congress – appears to be having an effect on Bush’s decision-making. This source said he believed Bush had planned to launch an attack on Iran, possibly as early as this week, but was getting “weak knees.”

If this is true it's worth noting that Delusional Dick is overseas and thus not able to whisper into George's ear. Maybe he'll stay gone.

As Churchill said, to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

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What A Mess

The New Yorker's Sy Hersh on on planning for war on Iran and various maneuverings in the Middle East.

Oy.

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This Could Get Ugly

A general's revolt?

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

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A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

[Via SusanG at dKos.]

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Auggghhh!

It's the return of Aluminum Tubes: The Sequel!

Hill singled out U.S. allegations that North Korea maintains a secret highly enriched uranium program as a likely source of future trouble in the talks. Hill charged that U.S. intelligence has discerned in the past a pattern of acquisitions, including aluminum tubes made in Germany, that is "entirely consistent" with a highly enriched uranium program.

It's deja vu all over again.

So shiny!

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Here It Comes

Iran:

US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.

It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.

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BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.

Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.

In other words, Gulf of Tonkin redux. (They'll trace any such attack back to Iran regardless of the facts.)

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What's Going On?

First Chairman of the JCS Gen. Peter Pace, then CENTCOM Commander Adm. William Fallon, and now the poobah of Iraq information Maj. Gen. William Fallon:

Just saw General Caldwell, the chief spokesman in Iraq, on CNN, disputing the U.S. claim that the highest levels of the Iranian government are supplying weapons to insurgents in Iraq:

"I think people want to make an inference. I think people want to hype this up."

What the hell is going on? Is this a genuine revolt of the flag officers? Or a game of "good cop-bad cop"? Something is going on here but we're not being let in on the secret.

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Perplexed

Froomkin:

President Bush yesterday sounded perplexed that anyone would think he is preparing to attack Iran -- going so far as to make a sour face and lower his voice in a mocking imitation of his critics.

"I guess my reaction to all the noise about, you know, 'He wants to go to war' is, first of all, I don't understand the tactics, and I guess I would say it's political," Bush told C-SPAN's Steve Scully yesterday.

Or because you have absolutely no credibility, you great twit.

Froomkin coontinues:

Well, it could be that when it comes to the Middle East, the war in Iraq has so damaged Bush's credibility that even some of his natural allies don't believe what he has to say anymore -- even his pro forma denials of hostile intentions toward Iran.

And then there's the fact that those sour-faced, unhappy-sounding critics Bush was mocking have, time and again, been proved right.

It's the basic rule of the George the Lesser Era: Assume the worst course of action will be chosen for the most mendacious of reasons and you can't miss.

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