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Seymour Hersh's latest on Iran
<a href = "http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh">Seymour Hersh reports</a> that Congress last year agreed to a request from Bush for a major increase in funding for covert operations in Iran aimed at destabilizing the current regime.
This seems an entirely predictable Republican strategy to:
*pursue actions in Iran on its way out the door which might not necessarily be approved of by the public given the Administration's utter lack of foreign policy credibility and demonstrated incompetence.
*try to create a wedge issue dividing Obama and McCain, with the hope that either Obama bites and comments publicly and with disapproval on the covert action, or if the Administration does bomb in the runup to the election and Obama opposes that action. The hope on the Republican side would be that, even with all that has happened, enough voters will once again rally around the flag to tip the election to McCain.
Among the more obvious questions which suggest themselves:
Should Obama comment publicly on the Hersh report (either pre-emptively, or if asked by the media)? If so, what should he say?
What, if anything, should he say about the possibility of the Administration bombing Iran in these closing weeks of the campaign?
If Obama were to come out forcefully, pre-emptively and in a very public way against bombing Iran absent specified conditions, how would such an approach play and affect his chances in November?
If the Bush Administration does bomb, claims success of course in destroying nuclear infrastructure, what is the Obama campaign's response?
More broadly, what should be the Obama campaign's strategy to pre-empt or defeat such a Bush Administration strategy?
Comments (8)
One would think that not even the Bush/Cheney administration would have the audacity to attack Iran...but one might well be wrong. Their every decision is counter-intuitive and, therefore, alarmingly predictable.
Attacking Iran must seem irresistible to them, as it represents a three-for-one satisfaction: 1) going out with one last derisive demonstration of their self-empowered imperial presidency; 2) getting one more addict's hit of testosterone-driven aggression;
and 3) throwing a potentially pivotal kink into the November election process.
I think the bastards just might do it. And I sincerely wish we could let FISA go, for now, so that we may direct our attention to pre-empting this madness, if we can.
Is it, for example, time for mass demonstrations in every city in America? Time for a national shut-down day during which no one buys gasoline?
What are the other ways in which we the peoplel might be more effective in saying "NO" ?
June 30, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Part of the problem, a very large part in fact, is that the reservoir of animus that dates to the 1779-80 "hostage crisis" still exists. Note also that this animus comes without recognition of the fact that the US (and the UK) engineered the toppling of the Mossadegh government and the restoration of the Shah and his SAVAK secret police, thus giving the Iranian people some very good reasons to dislike the US. So the American people have little trouble as a group with the idea of bombing the crap out of some semi-pronounceable "furriners" half the globe's circumference away.
This, for the above reason, is going to be a difficult one to forestall. Of course, when the Strait of Hormuz closes, as it will, and the Saudi facilities on the western side of the Gulf are hit with IRBMs, as they will be, taking a very significant chunk of the world's oil supply off the table, some minds may change.
Unfortunately, those minds may change in the direction of nukes.
I hear Antarctica is lovely in the spring...
June 30, 2008 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oops - should be "1979-80".
June 30, 2008 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think immediate impeachment proceedings against Cheney and Bush might forestall a maniacal strike against Iran - and I stress the word might. Cheney thinks he can attack any country he wants to and do it with impunity. Is he right? What is the matter with Congress?
June 30, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
How so? From what we've seen of Cheney, he already feels that since he's nearing the end of his term as puppeteer, there's nothing to lose.
No impeachment trial will forestall this, and it's unlikely that the Senate would convict, even for that. Party lines, you know. Republicans will never vote to convict a fellow Republican - those days ended with the Nixon resignation.
June 30, 2008 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, let's have the Dems give it a shot and see what happens - unfortunately they are too cowardly. It's better than sitting around watching Cheney kill people.
June 30, 2008 10:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what you're telling me is you'd rather waste time on empty theatrical gestures?
Because that's all it is. And I think you know that. The time to deal with it, unfortunately, is afterward, in criminal proceedings, not in a political body where the outcome is (a) known in advance, (b) not going to be one we favor, and (c) therefore easily caricatured and used to the opposition's advantage.
Win the damned election, try the war criminals after. Why is that so difficult for some to grasp?
July 1, 2008 12:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to acknowledge and thank Tom (aka tlees2 around these parts) for calling the Hersh article to my attention in the first place. Its potential implications deserve attention, and soon.
Let's see if this link to it works:
Hersh Article, Take II
July 1, 2008 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
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