The American public does not need to buy anything for Bush to bomb Iranian Revolutionary Guard that has been deemed a terrorist organization with the passage of the Kyl-lieberman bill. The AUMF gave Bush carte blanche authority to hunt down and kill terrorists anywhere on the globe.

Bush does not need to make a case to the American public at all. HRClinton voted for the AUMF and she has sanctioned Bush going after the Iranians. Interestingly, this is the exact same policy she called naive and inexperienced when BHObama stated he would hunt down the terrorists in Pakistan.

HRClinton is a warhawk who is committed to warmongering and she will do nothing to stop this war. Hillary has never opposed the war she has only said that how it was executed was disasterous. Bush fully intends to take us to war with Iran before he leaves office and he has told the American public so on several occasions.

I suspect he will do so right before the Presidential nominations so that Americans will know how high the stakes are in choosing the next President.

I posted this on the 'Some Reasons Why' thread. I post it again to try to get this idea out there. The Iranians have the capability to do the American military terrible terrible damage. Not in some vague long time frame, but in days.

There is as Seymour Hersh says "No learning." How is it that the catastrophic results of the largest and most expensive war game in history, specifically gaming an attack on Iran for Christ's sake, have disappeared from the discussion?

Reed Hundt's bad idea number twelve begins:

"There's a non-trivial risk that the military action itself would end badly even on its own terms of engagement. "

Right.

In the pentagon's Millennium Challenge 2002 war games the 'red forces,' commanded by General Paul van Ripper, and representing Iran, sank an aircraft carrier, two Marine Corps helicopter carriers and thirteen other warships - in the first 48 hours of the conflict.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020906-iraq1.htm

Not likely in real life? Well, anti-ship missiles haven't been used a lot, but when used, have been absolutely lethal:

On October 21,1967, the Israeli destroyer Eilat was sunk by four SS-N-2 “Styx " missiles fired from two Egyptian missile boats

In the Falklands War the Argentines had five exocets. With these they sank two British warships, and damaged a third.

In 1987 USS Stark was heavily damaged by two exocets.

Last summer Hizbullah fired two anti-ship missiles, badly damaging an Israeli warship and an Egyptian freighter.

It has been nearly twenty years since the end of the Iran-Iraq war. It seems reasonable to assume that the Iranians have spent that time digging in to their very long and rugged Persian Gulf coast.

Note that the IDF failed utterly to suppress rocket fire in South Lebanon, and that the US failed in the first Gulf War to eliminate Iraq's scuds. How exactly do we intend to destroy Iran's defenses?

Russian anti-ship doctrine calls for flooding the target vessel with missiles, to overwhelm any defensive measures that might be deployed. See page six of:

http://www.ausairpower.net/ascms.pdf

The Iranians manufacture the "Noor" missile, a possibly enhanced version of the Chinese C-802, and may have it in very large numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-802

And they may have the truly fearsome Moskit/Yakhonts class of missile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-270_Moskit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhont

Now in the 2002 war games US forces lost thousands dead in the first two days of the conflict. The totals in a real conflict might very quickly reach the losses in Iraq to date. And what would be the psychological effect on the American people of images of numbers of US warships in flames, or an aircraft carrier sinking?

Will this be the next 'New Pearl Harbor,' uncomfortably like the original?

Can we think this through, please?

This gets back to the need for a far greater -- and broader -- outcry against military intervention in Iran. The Democratic presidential candidates have been shamefully passive on this issue....
.
.
... Likewise, the mainstream press must be pressured to follow up on the revelations in the Hersh piece -- all too often he stands virtually alone in doing genuine reporting on this and other key foreign policy issues. And members of Congress need to hear from their constituents, urging a stand-alone resolution denouncing the idea of going to war against Iran.

This is precisely right, but the potential for an outcry is still being held back by some rather primitive taboos. It is still apparently verboten or bad form in American politics and mainstream media discourse to suggest to the American public that it is very likely the case that the administration and it's most prominent hawkish supporters are simply lying about the Iranian nuclear program, Iranian activity in Iraq, Iranian regional "hegemony" and the rest. This despite the fact that these blackguards have a clear track record of untruth, and have been implicated beyond any reasonable doubt in a similar disinformation campaign leading up to the Iraq invasion.

Our Kurdish allies constantly dispute hysterical US contentions that Iranian government personnel found in Kurdish Iraq are there to foment violent attacks against US troops. They report that those emissaries are in Iraq building normal and healthy economic relations between Iran and their neighbors to the east. The Iraqi government, our supposed allies, both Shia and Kurd components, are sensibly working on solidifying those relationship with Iran. Similarly, our Afghan allies dispute US claims about the supposedly nefarious doings of Iran in Afghanistan. In both cases, the Iranians are actually backing the same sides we have been backing, a situation that is most inconvenient for White House and Congressional propagandists. The rest of the world knows that these wild stories about Iran actively supporting and promoting the agendas of Shia-hating Taliban in Afghanistan and Shia-hating and Persian-hating Sunni insurgents in Iraq are laughable. They are laughing at us and our opinion leaders for swallowing them. Or rather, they would be laughing if it weren't for the fact that a seemingly congenital American idiocy is about to unleash another shit storm on the world in which they live.

As for the alarms about a new Iranian "hegemony" in the Middle East, an alarm I heard Wesley Clark repeat on NPR recently, this is apparently a remarkable new style of hegemony for which there is no discernible evidence, and which is the first hegemony in world history characterized by the presence of the armed forces and representatives of the hegemon's vastly more powerful enemy in every country on its border (even Turkmenistan now, it appears.) One searches in vain on the map for the Iranian armies moving into Middle Eastern countries, building foreign bases, positioning their forces on foreign territories, subordinating foreign economic establishments to Iranian finance, etc.

The US has blackmailed much of Europe into supporting a middle ground position on sanctions - not because a substantial number of clear-thinking Europeans are sincerely worried all that much about Iran - but because their governments are convinced that for the sake of preserving the Atlantic alliance during an era in which the United States is run by a blithering idiot, they will have to appease the Americans in some way. This is misinterpreted by many in the US as "support."

The Presidency, quite obviously, has tremendous power, and resisting or thwarting its plans requires a tremendous assemblage of power on the other side. To avoid war with Iran, the political resistance in the United States must become massive and unequivocal. The public, much of the military and even our corrupt, incompetent and mendacious Congress must be rallied to the side of truth and common sense. And they must be rallied to oppose Bush with drive and commitment, not just casual political opportunism. To do this, we have to fight just as hard - even harder - on the side of truth and sanity as the Bush administration is fighting on the side of falsehood and malevolence. We are not going to succeed if the debate is dominated by the administration on one side, and "moderate" critics on the other side who appease the hawks by accepting their lies and general narrative at face value, but quibble only about tactics. Good sense does not consist in splitting the difference between guileless stupidity and malevolent lunacy.

Not to mention that Iran could retaliate inside Iraq and basically cut American lines of supply, putting our soldiers in serious jeopardy, especially if it coincided with a general uprising among the Iraqi populace in the south.

Bombing Iran could force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq through hostile territory, with hundreds if not thousands of casualties and who knows how many prisoners of war.

I don't see how it could be anything but ugly beyond anything we've ever known in war. Some people refer to another Pearl Harbor. I think it'll be more like Dunkirk, only there won't be any ships to sail to the rescue.

Don't forget that Bush recently gave himself the power to suspend the Constitution on several grounds - natural disaster, terrorist attack, etc.

One of the triggers, interestingly enough, is social unrest in protest of American foreign policy.

That's a pretty obvious shot across the bow. If Bush wants to bomb Iran and we protest too much, he'll declare an emergency and suspend the Constitution.

Could that be the real reason for bombing Iran? Or am I engaging in conspiracy theories?

sphealey,
Can you cite any of Hersh's statements which have been proven to be INcorrect? Any statements that have predicted that the US would attack Iran by a certain date?

As I recall, Hersh mainly claimed that the US has special forces units operating inside Iran, probably in conjunction with the PKK terrorist group. Do you doubt that is happening? Ahmadinejad mentioned internal terrorism in his speech. Hersh also chronicled the internal Pentagon planning for an air attack against nuclear sites, which apparently now (because of changed conditions) has been changed to military sites.

Hersh has a pretty good reputation speaking truth to power. We don't have many like him. You should bring something (like facts) to the table if you intend to insult him.

Perhaps you're being ironic.

But in case you're not, isn't bombing an act of war?

JeffC.
"Don't forget that Bush recently gave himself the power to suspend the Constitution on several grounds - natural disaster, terrorist attack, etc."

I question that. Can you cite a document?

Me?  I'm an oil fundamentalist. I think Cheney is the Creature from the Black Lagoon Oil Pool. It amazes me to read this discussion, and even Sy Hersh's column, without mention of oil strategery.  

Anyway, here's a good link to bone up on the problem. 

Neoboho

The Presidency, quite obviously, has tremendous power, and resisting or thwarting its plans requires a tremendous assemblage of power on the other side. To avoid war with Iran, the political resistance in the United States must become massive and unequivocal.

The first thing you have to do is stop Hillary Clinton.  She's already voted to enable war with Iran.  What more do we need to know? 

If you want to stop war with Iran, send money Obama and Edwards and Richardson and Dodd.   The anti-war vote is important in Iowa and New Hampshire.  If Hillary doesn't take a hit there, what will stop the war machine in either party?

Re: There is no constitutional method by which the president can "suspend" the constitution, but minor details like that are not likely to stop Bush from doing just that.

Um, how can he do if it isn't possible in the first place? Isn't that a little like a lunatic insisting he can fly and then jumping off a skyscraper? At some point reality really does trump delusion.
Moreover with all our troops (and then some) committed and tied down in the Middle East Bush could not even pull off a military coup(assuming the military would support him, and that I very much doubt). In fact at this point for the remainder of his presidency he is dependent on the suffrance of the American people-- which they will easily grant him as long as does not disturb them any further and they know he will be gone in Jan 2009.

For whatever reason letting Cheney attack Iran would be an even greater error than the invasion of Iraq.

It seems the Democrats have gone the way of the Vichy French.

re: Bush can do whatever he wants to do

How? He isn't Sauron with the One Ring. He doesn't have supernatural powers. Indeed, my lunatic-off-a-skyscraper was the wrong analogy: Bush trying to suspend the Constitution* would be far more like King Canute ordering the tides to obey him. There simply is no way to suspend the Constitution because there are no real world nuts-and-bolts mechanisms for doing so-- or for governing without a constitution. And since the military is fully engaged abroad, there's no ad hoc way of even trying to control the country outside the established channels. (And if the military cannot control Iraq, how could they control the whole of the USA, filled with gun nuts and political paranoids of all stripes? I think God Almoghty would walk away from that task!)
Besides which the GOP-- indeed, the righwing world in general-- is full of lots of ambitious folks who are chomping at the bit for Bush to depart (they know how bad he's been too even if they won't admit it) that they too may have their day in the sun, so I suspect that they would be the first to usher His Georgeness off to the nearest looney bin.

* I assume we are talking about suspending the Constitution in toto: canceling elections, dismissing Congress and the Supreme Court and even state and municipal governments, ruling by decree etc. Not simply pushing the envelope with end-runs around FISA and the like. Every president has done that (and every Congress has passed some very constitutonally dubious legislation)

That's a pretty good analogy, altho I think a better one is the array of political forces in Weimar Germany before Hitler took power. And I mean to include not just the Dems here, but also independents, disaffected Republicans, Libertarians, et. al. There is a pretty large majority in this country that oppose the policies of the neocon cult running things, but they are suffering from a kind of political anomie that afflicted the German Social Democrats, anti-Nazi conservatives, communists, etc. who eventually handed over power and their lives to Hitler. We are too distracted by petty politics, focusing on silly things like the Moveon ad, Rush Limbaugh, Britney Spears, ad nauseum to mount an effective united front against an adversary who is very focused on the means and ends to their criminal enterprises. If we don't get our act together, we will end up at the wrong end of the barrel of a Blackwater Brownshirt's rifle.

UA

I took Ellen's comment as ironic both about Bush-Cheney manipulation of public opinion and about the trend of waging war without declaring war. Then again, maybe all the high-placed mad machinations have made me yearn for comic irony, especially dark comic irony.

Give your government and military a $600 billion annual budget and you can rest assured they're going to bomb someone.

Scott Horton gets it.

I would agree that we're in the Middle East as a preemptive move against China, mainly. I have a sneaking suspicion that our deployment in Iraq is a tacit admission that resource wars are underway. As we heard, WMD were chosen as the sales pitch to get us into Iraq, and for a variety of reasons, Iraq was the perfect gateway candidate for establishing a strategic military presence in the Middle East.

As far as our continued presence in Iraq, I would imagine that an unstable and incoherent Iran could actually be seen as preferable to a functioning state with interests in Iraq. That is, for the US to get what it wants out of Iraq, continued Iranian influence is counterproductive. An Iranian client state, which is what Iraq would almost certainly turn out to be, is not what the US wants in the Middle East.

If a suitable rationale can be created to target Iran, I would think war could logically follow in order to consolidate the position in Iraq, and extend our presence and oil control. Sort of akin to not just bombing Cambodia, but taking it over to deny the North Vietnamese that avenue of access and maneuver, and make the physical map more in Vietnam more controllable. A flanking maneuver, in other words.

Given the presumption that a Western-friendly population is misrepresented by Iran's religious authority, the calculation might very well be the same as it was in Iraq: that a regime change would create a US client state. The thinking might also be that this is now necessary to achieve the same end in Iraq. Remove a state sponsor of terrorism, ease pressure on the flanks, consolidate and expand the US oil position (pushing up prices and profits in the meantime): I can see whence Iran-war backers might be seduced.

I'm not advocating any of this, rather, trying to find an underlying rationale that actually makes sense (however twisted it might be) in what appears to be a nonsensical situation otherwise.

That's what happens when you don't "Play by the Rules of Engagement."

Re: "At the brink?"

Answer from Hersh's article:

“A lot depends on how stupid the Iranians will be,” Brzezinski told me. “Will they cool off Ahmadinejad and tone down their language?” The Bush Administration, by charging that Iran was interfering in Iraq, was aiming “to paint it as ‘We’re responding to what is an intolerable situation,’ ” Brzezinski said. “This time, unlike the attack in Iraq, we’re going to play the victim. The name of our game seems to be to get the Iranians to overplay their hand.”

"We ain't goin' to war with Iran! We're just gonna bomb 'em."

...I have no evidence there is any irony here

It's irany...(sorry)

Not to speak for anyone else, but Ellen is a sort of master of irony. Anyway, I always find her comments funny.

Just keep in mind that the Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) that are being brokered in Iraq right now are 30 year agreements. Iraq is getting such a bad cut that military protection will be required for the duration of the contracts. That gives us a hint on how long the US military will be in Iraq.

There's a pipeline in Columbia that's been hit so many times by rebels and paramilitary groups that it's called "The Flute." Now Mexican oil and gas pipelines are under attack by Mexico's new "El Caida" - a "united front" composed of several smaller insurrectionist groups: Ejército Popular Revelucionario (EPR). Honda, Kellog and Hershey corporation property has also been recently sabotaged in Mexico.

I think you are exactly correct about China - just as the neocon literature called for in the "Hegemon" war. Petrochemical trade in dollars is the prime support for the dollar's value. But even now that Hussein's switch to the Euro has been "corrected" - the dollar's value is slipping against the Euro. But what do you expect from the neocons? These are the guys who believe that Plato and Socrates are sending them secret messages across time that only neocons can decipher.

Neoboho

Now, whether folks realized it or not, going after terrorist organizations is precisely what the AUMF authorized Bush to do.

Sep 18, 2001-- Authorization for Use of Military Force, Public Law 107-40 [S. J. RES. 23], 107th CONGRESS -- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
http://news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/terrorism/sjres23.es.html

You decide. We haven't heard lies that Iran (unlike Iraq) was behind 9/11 yet.

ecotourism
WeGoEco.com

No.

1. Leahy never mentioned suspending the Constitution.
2. Posse Comitatus is not even in the Constitution. The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on June 16, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction.
3. Posse comitatus is already, effectively, a dead duck.

ecotourism
WeGoEco.com