Bush Iraq War Plan Takes Shape: Destabilize and Attack Iran

With the announcement that Israel has gone on high alert in possible preparation for bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, the Bush and neo-conservative plan for the Mideast begins to bear fruit.

As recent articles in Britian and Israel show, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has put his military on high alert. As these reports show, sources inside the Israeli government say that the Israeli air force is waiting for the word to take flight and bomb Iran.

According to the Sunday Times:

A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: “What next?” That question would have to be answered in the next few months, he said.

Defence sources in Israel believe the end of March to be the “point of no return” after which Iran will have the technical expertise to enrich uranium in sufficient quantities to build a nuclear warhead in two to four years.

“Israel — and not only Israel — cannot accept a nuclear Iran,” Sharon warned recently. “We have the ability to deal with this and we’re making all the necessary preparations to be ready for such a situation.”

So the US and Israel's agendas are now apparent. With American forces in neighboring Iraq, any retaliation that Iran might decide to take for Israeli aggression would be stymied. Iran's military options would be limited, unless it gambled and decided to engage US forces.

I wonder whether this has not been part of the neoconservative foreign policy plan all along. That is, they were aware that Iran was working on nuclear power and its related potential for developing nuclear weapons. For years, intelligence reports have speculated that Iran was developing these weapons.

As preparation for blocking any easy Iranian advance on Israel should Israel pre-emptively attack the Iranian nuclear research effort, the US positioned troops in Iraq to forestall this possibility. Parts of this plan can be seen in various Bush speeches, especially his pinpointing Iran as part of an "Axis of Evil."

At the time, the phrase simply seemed to be a rhetorical flourish in Bush's bellicose style. With recent developments, however, such formulations begin to fit into an overall plan, which now appears to include destabilizing the mideast so that a greater order that meets US and Israeli long-term security interests can be imposed.

Developing...