I am having multiple types of computer problems, so I didn't get a chance to do much of anything yesterday. Damn machines! Things seem OK right now, and I wanted to get this item in before I respond at length to Democracy Lover's comments on my previous post.
We are entering nightmare country here. The Bush Administration is ramping up the rhetoric against Iran. They are claiming Iranian repsonsibility for the attack last week in which five American service personnel were kidnapped and later found executed on the side of a road. They are insisting that a porous Iran-Iraq border is responsible for all the weapons and "foreign fighters" in Iraq. American troops now have ROE that allow them to "kill" "Iranians found in Iraq. We have not one but two Carrier Battle Groups in the Persian Gulf (I hope all those Tomcats don't crash into one another!). It goes on and on and on and on . . .
There are many reasons why this increasing belligerence toward Iran, despite its very public nature, is below the radar screen - Iraq is, in the words of Sen. Arlen Specter, "sucking the oxygen from everything else"; there is a power struggle, going on day after day in Washington, as to who is in charge, and right now, no one is winning; the struggle for power in Washington is a great distraction for the Bush Administration, because it allows them to move unnoticed. The biggest reason, however, is that I think so many Americans refuse to believe that the Administration would be so unbelievably stupid as to begin even an air war against Iran when things in Iraq are such a bloody mess. The whole south-eastern and southern Asian area could completely unravel, sparking a real war of Islam against the United States, and we simply do not have the resources or the will to continue in Iraq, let alone such a conflict. Of course, America has nukes, but so does Pakistan (who could not stay out of such a conflict if it expanded).
Speaking of nukes, does anyone really want to wake up tomorrow and read the United States decided to drop a few nukes on Iranian targets? What kind of response do you think that would receive around the world?
I will admit that, while I saw the signs as long ago as seven months, I refused to believe that an Administration as unbelievably stupid and incompetent as the one we now have would try the same tired trick and get people to fall for it. I also thought that, with all the evidence showing we were breaking the military months ago, they would abandon the plan because they were unrealistic from a logistical point of view. Because of the multiple horrors of such a potential scenario - constitutional crises of various types, nuclear weapons use, a real war with real, horrific consequences for the United States - I just closed my eyes and siad, "They simply won't be that dumb."
I think that position was common, and we are paying a price for a refusal to read the signs properly. I think we have to start yesterday to ensure that the Bush Administration does NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, SO MUCH AS TOSS A PEBBLE UPON IRANIAN SOIL AND THAT IF IT DOES SOMETHING, ANYTHING (fart in its general direction, as the Pythons said), ALL OF 'EM, FROM BUSH ON DOWN, GET HAULED OUT OF OFFICE BEFORE THE FIRST SYLLABLE OF THE WORD IMPEACHMENT IS SOUNDED.
We have to start thinking the unthinkable in all sorts of areas, before it is too late.
