I'm kinda wondering if the US government is going to set some alll-time record for losisng it completely and on all levels. Bush is escalating the war on his own say-so alone (well, and Cheney's too). Everyone's bugg-eyed about Iran. The Democrats are so freaked they're issuing ultimatums on live TV. Of course, I may be reading too much into one word from Sen. Biden, but I think the implications of "resist" are a lot greater than "oppose." And the military seems to be dividing into factions like I've never seen before. The information for Seymour Hersh's articles last spring, about military actions against Iran, had to have come from very nearly the top - an amzing breakdown in command and control. I mean, those were operational plans, not the case studies and contingency plans that are cranked out every morning, stamped "Top Secret" over lunch and leaked to the media that afternoon in plenty of time to meet deadlines and still get to the cocktail party on time.
"Interesting times" just isn't going to cover it.

In the deja vu dept, I expect to hear more about "sanctuaries".

I'm sure Leverett is right, but would add that the WH may be hoping for Iran to start something. In that they will likely be disappointed. Bush is so transparent; Saddam wouldn't fall for the pre-invasion provocations beyond the symbolic radar targeting of overflights. Ahmadinejad is likely even more cagey.

I believed we would see a Tonkin Gulf for Iraq, and I was surprised that plans simply went ahead absent one. If the pattern holds, the WH won't wait for a cassus belli beyond the asserted "support".

Fasten seatbelts, turbulence ahead.

I've been a tin-foil hatter myself, not just saying that we're not at all gearing up for Iran, but even that the surge itself is a political ploy that went bad, a way of keeping another hope alive after the ISG for another month, not really changing anything, until we have entirely unrelated news to spring, in series that's enough to stretch out the war until it's ours, we lucky Democrats.  

I can't swear it's true, since Bush truly does never quit. But one piece of news today is worth a comment, because it supports that either he isn't serious about escalation or is simply lost in his bunker.  The Brits, says The Times, are actually hoping to reduce troop strength in the next months, by as much as 40,000.  That's almost twice the amount we claim to be surging, so the surge starts to looks more and more like either a fantasy, a marketing slogan, or both. At least it's nice the public isn't buying. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

Question: Is the intelligence on Iran's involvement another "slam dunk"? Do we need to worry about Bush/Cheney cooking the books on this also? Just wondering...

Sorry, a typo:  I meant from 7,000 to 3,000.  Hence my point that it's a reduction of twice the Bush increase.

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

There's been a lot of "annotating" of the president's speech. Here's an annotation relating to book cooking about Iran.

("I have one word for you."... Cambodia.)

Well, having a cup of coffee with some toast with Ahmadinejad seems less likely to bear any sort of fruit than moderate intimidation.

If the U.S. government were to adopt a policy of diplomacy and negotiation with Iran, just what kind of concessions do you think either president would be willing to offer?

Come on, people.

It really depends what they would get in return. Both countries have much of value they can offer each other.

But I think it would be important to open up diplomatic channels that circumvent Ahmadinejad to whatever possible extent. Iran's government has several competing power centers.

The Bush "presidency" offers the strongest case possible for the need for a Constitutional Convention so that a president can be removed for something less than high crimes and misdemeanors. The nation cannot afford another two years of this administration.

"Dangerous times" for all of us should cover it.

Tom

Wouldn't that be a parliamentarian system?

Congress is the sole authority on impeachability. Gerald Ford said an impeachable offense is whatever Congress decides is one. "Other high crimes and misdemeanors" is not a sharply defined statement.

JUMP!

Nothing terrifies me more than the idea of a Constitutional Convention given our current national mood.

A majority of the population is more than willing to surrender nine of the ten amendments in our Bill of Rights WITHOUT having them repealed. This is no time to have demagogues and wingnuts getting together to twiddle a document that has kept us free for 217 years (OK, 211 out of 217 ain't bad).

Third worst case: Dick Cheney and Hillary co-chair the convention.
Second worst case: Cheney chairs it alone.
Worst case: Hillary chairs it herself.

J. McCutchen

The game ladies and gentlemen is 3 card monty, your dealer still the man from Texas.

Been saying it's all about IraN for 3 weeks now

The 'Surge' Is A Red Herring by Paul Craig Roberts

Bush's "surge" speech is a hoax, but members of Congress and media commentators are discussing the surge as if it were real.

I invite the reader to examine the speech. The "surge" content consists of nonsensical propagandistic statements. The real content of the speech is toward the end where Bush mentions Iran and Syria.

Bush makes it clear that success in Iraq does not depend on the surge. Rather, "Succeeding in Iraq . . . begins with addressing Iran and Syria."

Bush asserts that "these two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops."

Bush's assertions are propagandistic lies.

The Iraq insurgency is Sunni. Iran is Shi'ite. If Iran is supporting anyone in Iraq it is the Shi'ites, who have not been part of the insurgency. Indeed, the Sunni and Shi'ites are engaged in a civil war within Iraq.

Does any intelligent person really believe that Iranian Shi'ites are going to arm Iraqi Sunnis who are killing Iraqi Shi'ites allied with Iran? Does anyone really believe that Iranian Shi'ites are going to provide sanctuary for Iraqi Sunnis?

Bush can tell blatant propagandistic lies, because Congress and the American people don't know enough facts to realize the absurdity of Bush's assertions....

Anyone here consider that perhaps things in Iraq have gone as planned and expected? Sure,from the point of view of Cheney and the other grand puppetmasters, it would have been swell if Chalabi could have been installed, and some of the unpleasantness of the past couple of years could have been avoided, but that would have been just gravy. No, the fundamental objectives have been achieved: decapitate the Baathist government, humiliate and then hang Hussein, set up bases from which we can maneuver in the heart of the Middle East. And if the Sunnis and Shiites are at each other's throats, so what? Let 'em kill each other. Nobody in the US even knows the difference between the two sects, and nobody cares.

And now it's Iraq's turn. No, we won't try to occupy them. Don't have the money, the troops, or the political capital. But we don't need any of that. We've got all the power we need, here in this White House, and we will do what the pacifists and Democrats and wobbly-kneed internationalists will never do: we'll bomb Iraq, smash its infrastructure, and decapitate its nuclear program.

And though we'll get a lot of lip from the Euros and the usual nattering nabobs, ultimately, they'll thank us for doing what they don't have the balls to do.

Now, get Condi over to Riyadh and pop open one of them Lone Stars -- you know, the no-alcohol kind they make special for me.

Levertt is pretty right on here, I think. Although, I don't think it took much analysis to figure out the President's plan. This has been on the burner for weeks.

It's amazing that people can so quickly forget that Clinton was impeached for fibbing about having sex with an intern.  That lowers the bar way down near overtime parking for defining a "high crime and misdemeanor".  So, there is no constitutional reason for not impeaching Bush, and the case against both him and Cheney is a slam dunk.

There are only two problems with this, plus one imaginary problem.  The two problems are that the Senate requires 67 votes to convict, and we cannot yet count that many.  The second is that impeachment absorbs almost all of the energy in Congress until it is over, and there are a lot of things that need to be done quickly.  The imaginary problem is that an impeachment of Bush could end up costing a few people their seats in Congress.

It is that latter "problem" that is the deal breaker.  If every Congressman knew that their own seat would not be endangered by an impeachment, the hearings would already be underway.  And, those hearings most likely would result in convincing enough Republicans in the Senate that they would lose their seats if the vote against conviction that the impeachment would succeed.  So, all we need is a spine transplant for several Democrats in Congress.

Hoppy in Sacramento

"moderate intimidation"

If Bush really wants to frighten Iran, he should offer to "help" them rebuild their infrastructure and restore public order after bombing them, the same way that we have "helped" Iraq.

"Hello, I'm an American and I'm here to help you."

The whole Gulf of Tonkin thing was a pretext to start a war.

See recently-declassified docs on the Tonkin Incident here:

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 40 Years Later: Signals Intercepts, Cited at Time, Prove Only August 2nd Battle, Not August 4; Purported Second Attack Prompted Congressional Blank Check for War

Johnson knew that greater US military involvement in Vietnam, especially a direct US miltiary attack on North Vietnam, would not be popular among Americans. After all, he had the upcoming 1964 presidential elections to worry about, but the military planners were concerned that South Vietnam would fall before the elections. It was therefore necessary to create an pretext for the bombing of North Vietnam, which would convince the American people and the rest of the world. That pretext is known to history as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

All chaos, all the time. I agree it is worth considering as a possibility.

sPh

But there are quite a few important concessions on the table right now - but I think diplomats like to call them "incentives."

The 6 nations incentive package is the important one now. It has a lot of perks for Iran, but while favoring the package, Iran still wants to negotiate a couple of points. But international assistance for civilian nuclear energy and entry into the WTO is of great interest to Iran.  EU responded quickly to Iran's request for further negotiations, but everything is blocked by the refusal of the US to negotiate at all until Iran stops Uranium enrichment activities.  It would be silly for Iran to do this, since ending the enrichment program is their major concession in the whole bargaining procedure.

And then there's Russia...no one seems to be thinking about that aspect of this issue.  My suspicion is that Moscow and Teheran collaborated on Russia's signing on to the recent sanctions against Iran.  But then, Bush has been Putin's patsy for 6 years running.  Bush's foreign policy is Junior Woodchuck Ranger caliber next to the pros...Iran, Russia, China... 

Neoboho

Actually, it has been Iran that has made repeated offers of concessions, only to be dismissed off-hand. The EU-3 offer made to Iran was widely viewed to be a joke (an "empty box in pretty wrapping" according to one analyst) which was intended to be refused.

In 2003, Iran offered a full-scale negotiations with the US which included the nuclear issue and their support for the Palestinians. The US ignored the request and reprimanded the Swiss embassy for forwarding it. See:

http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Notes/BN050811-IranEU.htm

A partial list of Iranian proposals to resolve the nuclear dispute, collected by the Arms Control Association can be
found here:
http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Iran_Nuclear_Proposals.asp

And analysis of the EU-3 offer to Iran can be found here:

http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Notes/BN050811-IranEU.htm

I don't like offending people, but as you would expect, I don't agree with you about lying under oath.  Presidents are people with all of the flaws most people have, as are Congresspersons, too, of course.  What a president or a congressperson does with their personal life may well cause me to be disgusted with them, but it won't cause me to change my opinion of their performance of their elected job.  Even the Florida Page Chaser didn't earn my desire to see his backside as he left the Congress by his personal life activities.  What got me there was his overweening PR activity aimed at building up his creds for protecting our children thru draconian laws, all the while he was busy violating those very same laws.  That is malperformance of his elected job in my mind.

If it is discovered that Bush spends his idle hours crusing gay pick up bars that will not change my opinion about his  performance of his elected job, nor will it cause me to want even more to impeach him.  And, if he is found to have lied in a deposition when questioned about those activities I will still feel no stronger about impeaching him.

Impeachment is in the Constitution not to ensure that our President is a morally upright man (or woman), but to allow us a way to get rid of a President who misbehaves in the performance of his job.  And, the biggest misbehavior possible has to be knowingly violating his oath to defend the US Constitution, and malfeasance as commander in chief of the armed forces.  That is what Bush must be impeached for.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Sheesh, I just read that a 3rd carrier battle group -the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan- is getting ready to depart from San Diego for the Gulf and that an amphibious assault group led by the U.S.S. Boxer will accompany them.

Add to that the deployment of Patriot missiles and ...

I've seen some reports like this, and there's a bit of strangeness. For the start of Desert Storm, they surged six carrier battle groups.

An amphibious ready group, however, just carries a reinforced battalion of Marines (Marine Amphibious Unit), nothing that could do a large-scale invasion. I believe there's a second ARG there, and there's normally equipment for a larger Marine Amphibious Brigade at Diego Garcia.

Increasing Marine strength would suggest a limited amphibious attack, and I'm not sure how that fits into this. Oh, in theory there could be a ground attack to neutralize and hold an coastal Iranian base such as Bandar Abbas -- but I sure wouldn't want to take that trip.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Someone pointed out, not too long ago, that proposals for what to do next in Iraq are a waste if time if one does not acknowledge the basic premise -- the reasons we are there in there in the first place. If one fails to take into account that our very presence in Iraq is based on fallacies upon fallacies, then whatever solution one proposes next will not be terribly realistic in terms of what is happening today, on the ground.

I think the same applies to the conjecture about Bush's speech, his "surge" plan.

Speculation about what did Bush mean? or what does Bush intend? or will we succeed? or what if it fails? is just so much idle chatter unless one takes into consideration the one unassailable fact that no one wants to publicly acknowledge.

And that is that this president--or the vice president, whichever one it is that's in charge--has no regard whatsoever for the Constitution, or for the other two branches of government,or for the rule of law, or for governance, or for diplomacy, or, indeed, for opposing points of view. It will be his way or the highway.

We need to publicly acknowledge the evidence that has accumulated over the last six years, as well as his history of behavior, and acknowledge what those facts mean.

Senator Biden didn't put it strongly enough to Secretary Rice Thursday at the Senate Armed Services hearings.

Will someone pull him back from the brink before he takes us all over the cliff with him?

Massive Gandhian type movement.

Tom

Have the nattering nabobs or Euros thanked us for Iraq? (There is only one 'I' country (Iraq) that we invaded, Iran is the other 'I' country with oil).

Creating a huge, violent anti-American region of chaos from Jordan to India is not likely to be a winner for Bush/Cheney and Co. Americans may not care about their government killing people on the other side of the globe, but they do care about the price of oil, which is sure to go up in such a scenario.

It would also drive up the toll of US dead and wounded, the bottom line is that regardless what damage the US inflicts, the Islamic heartland will never accept occupation by US military forces. At some point the war will break the US military, the US dollar, and then the US economy.

Iran is also much bigger than Iraq, has three times the population, and has some capability to strike back. This is why I think Bush will not start a war with Iran.  He is a coward and a swaggering bully, and bully's only fight against weak opponents.  

Some aspects of Bush's plan to stabilize Baghdad has given me a horrible notion that I can’t really believe will happen but still plagues me like a bad dream.

Perhaps the saber rattling toward Iran is taking a page from the Sunni insurgent handbook; justify your operations by branding the Shia leadership as agents of Iran.

If U.S. troops are embedded in Iraqi units in order to "hold" neighborhoods in Baghdad, they will be taking casualties fighting directly in the civil war. The U.S. military will demand force protection that will cause missions to change from sweeps to pitched battles in the twinkling of an eye. The Iraqi forces will falter because they will be forced to fight against elements of their own political affiliations and the U.S troops will separate themselves in order to maintain unit integrity. Pictures of the U.S. forces being betrayed will cause an up swell of righteous indignation. Bush’s poll numbers crawl back into the forties.

The Maliki administration will collapse under the pressure to perform as both the enabler of U.S. policy and the coalition leader of the Shia majority. The U.S. will tie this collapse to some event that will prove that they were only puppets of Sadr.

In the meantime, Iran is in the cross hairs. They will be forced to pursue two contradictory courses as the political dissolution of the Shia proceeds across their border. They will provide enough network support to be branded meddlers in the civil war but refrain from the sort of material support that would trigger air strikes by the U.S.

Because the civil war won't permit the constitutional process of selecting a new government to proceed, the U.S. will have to once again resume administrative control of Iraq.

Try withdrawing from that.

See what you mean, and I seem to remember chess is in fact Persian origin.

We have discussed it a couple of times. I think that there is a distinct possibility that in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz there are troops trained and armed similarly to Hezbollah, except that 10 times more of them, with 10 times better rockets.

We bomb Iran, Iran starts to lob rockets at tankers (and our fleet). We retaliate by bombing the launching sites flat. They keep lobing the rockets, as Hezbollah did, using similar tricks. So we send ground troops to dispatch the miscreants. With the success similar to IDF against Hezbollah.

There is a big uncertainty just how good Iranian rockets are. Pooh-pooh scenarios are than they have nothing that would seriously threaten tankers, which very solid pieces of ironwork. Alarmist scenarios are that they have some supersonic water-skimming rockets that may be only so-so effective against tankers, but very effective against explosive laden destroyers, aircraft carriers etc.

In any case, even as we are otherwise occupied near the Strait, our supply routs in southern Iraq acquire some curious self-destruct properties, and our aircraft in Iraq become wobbly out of the sudden (some bastards are shooting anti-aircraft rockets), Iraqi parliament asks us to go etc.

.> Pooh-pooh scenarios are than they have
> nothing that would seriously threaten
> tankers, which very solid pieces of ironwork.

Supertankers are basically floating eggshells. They are lucky not to collapse when a crewmember sneezes.

sPh

J. McCutchen

Smart fella....instinct for the jugular not the capillaries

Sam Farr (D-CA17) Moves to Repeal Iraq War Powers Resolution

Give the Man from Monterrey a ceegar!

But it isn't twice the Bush increase. The Bush increase is supposed to be 21,000+. The British decrease is 4,000, not 40,000.

I have no doubt that in El Presidente and the Junta's mind the road to Tehran leads through Baghdad. The detaining of the Iranian diplomats are the first step in trying to incite Iran into attacking us but I don't think they will take the bait, echoing what Tom Wright said in his first comment on this thread. So we will come up with our cassus belli by making a bogus case that some portion of Iraqi insurgents terrorists are acting on behalf of Tehran...and attack Iran in an unprovoked manner based on "cooked" intel just like we did when we attacked Iraq.

The question will be how will the world respond? I don't think an unprovoked attack on Iran is going to sit well with anybody including some of our closest allies in Europe and The Americas (re: we will be pissing off many of the remaining countries that still claim us to be a "friend"). Will the UN try to put sanctions on the Bush Administration at that point? Will the UN pass a resolution (or resolutions) condemning attacks of aggression by the US? Probably yes on both counts and we will be building a coalition...of countries that oppose our reckless and destabilizing foreign policy. I am betting nobody here views those developments as something that will be in the best interests of the US...

Bush no longer needs to be opposed he needs to be vigorously resisted as the Senate Democrats and Chuck Hagel say they will do. Bush needs to be stopped and Congress should use every constitutional tool at their disposal to stop him, if he does attack Iran, including impeachment...

It's amazing that people can so quickly forget that Clinton was impeached for fibbing about having sex with an intern. That lowers the bar way down near overtime parking for defining a "high crime and misdemeanor".

I suppose that it all depends on what your values are. Essentially, Clinton committed adultery, if you respect the 10 commandments, and if you have respect for women, then you might say: "Clinton repeatedly used his position to solicit sex from employees."

In general, some part of me thinks that Clinton committed "high crimes" because the "Democratic Party" is supposed to be about respecting women and Clinton failed to do that, he used his position to get sex.

Of course Lewinsky might have been willing but I think that the President should prove that "the laws I enforce, by sending folks to jail, can be followed!"

Americans thinking they can fuck with other people's governments while they sit haplessly by and let their own government fuck them out of their rights, freedoms, blood, and money. Now there you have a cognitive dissonance for the ages.

And as for the fattest, dumbest "hyperpower" military ever to lose for four years to some rag-tag, "improvisational" "dead-enders" in their "last throes," I can only remind people of the last time this vaunted (by itself) machine went up against some Iranian students on a "rescue" mission and wound up a twisted pile of planes and bodies somewhere out in a desert far, far, away. Oh, yes, by all means, let us have yet another reprise of the Bay of Pigs, only this time we'll call it the Bay of Goats. As Bruce Hornsby sang in Defenders of the Flag: "If these guys are the good ones, I don't want to know the bad." Probably not more than one or two Farsi speakers among the mob of them.

Grow up, America. Get a grip. Rambo didn't really do all that stuff you think he did. In fact, Sylvester Stallone never got anywhere near Vietnam, at least not while I served there. Stop confusing scripted Hollywood movies with Murphy's World where everything that can go wrong -- and if the American military has anything to say about it -- does.

Bush seems to be laying the groundwork for getting support in the U.S. for a strike against Iran. And he may succeed to some degree.

But any attack on Iran will be seen differently outside the U.S. And I'm not referring to the Europeans, who currently seem to be treading water outside the mainstream of history. I'm referring to the other 6 billion people who we co-habitate this globe with.

Any attack on Iran will be a watershed event, a permanent change of regard for not only the U.S. government, but for Americans as a people. We will have declared and demonstrated ourselves to be the enemy of all peoples, a delusional, spoiled, frightened nation that will wantonly murder anyone who dares to think they too are human. That is how the world will see us.

Does it matter what dirty brown people think of us? If you think it doesn't, then go ahead and close off all imports and exports and watch this economy become a basketcase overnight. The U.S. economy needs, not desires but needs, numerous strategic metals that are not found in any usable quantities on the North American continent. Considering our consumption, even iron and bauxite fall into that category. Would countries eager to utilize their resources for their own growth, and the growth of other non-threatening trading partners, begin to curtail sales to a bellicose, out of control U.S. citizenry? Perhaps you don't understand what a "watershed event" means, or that the quarterly earnings report is not the basis that 94% of the human race uses for basic decisions about the kind of world they want to live in (only Americans use that benchmark). 

In just this week: the U.S. president threatened Iran and Syria, the next day U.S. soldiers assaulted an Iranian Consulate in Iraq, the new proposed commander of forces in the Middle East will be an admiral with 2, perhaps 3, carrier battle groups, and a reputation as the military's go-to-guy for "force projection", and senators from both parties shook their fists and quivered in anger, frustration and impotence denouncing the direction we are headed.  If you think that looks ominous from this perspective, take a step outside your little world and ask what it looks like from "out there".

As the sun rises this morning in Caracas, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad begins his response to Bush's frenzied threats with a four day tour that will include consultations with Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, Bolivia's Evo Morales, and attending the inauguration ceremony of Ecuador's new antigringo president Rafael Correa.  Between Ahmadinejad and Chavez they control 14% of the world's exported oil, and both of them could survive taking their oil entirely off the market for over a year in a post-strike-Iran world. Indeed, both of them would emerge stronger for doing so.

Remember how smart and grownup we all felt in the 90s as we declared with glee that wars were now obsolete, that conflicts would be fought with economics instead? Fresh off the economic victory over the Soviet Union, and pumped up with illusions of an infinite Dow it sure sounded right, didn't it? Then the market tanked and we all retreated from that dot-com-wisdom, claiming, "that isn't what I said, you're misquoting me...." Well take a look at Baghdad. The first part of that truth has given birth, soldiers and armies are indeed obsolete. Attack Iran and I predict we'll find out what kind of monsters and angels the second half that truth can bring into the world. Economic warfare sounded cool when we assumed we'd be the winners. The whole idea just kind of brings a sickening feeling to the gut when you're not so sure anymore. Welcome to how the rest of the world felt as we sang those praises to ourselves just a decade ago.