Coming War with Iran (Updated)

The Bush admin has done an admirable job of selling the coming war with Iran. Popping every trial balloon like it was just bubbles of fantasy, it has made such a war appear less and less likely. Simultaneously, it has made those who see the writing on the wall of such a war look like so many Chicken Littles.

Excellent job, you guys in disinformation and psyops. You really have played this game superbly.

So all the talk about Condi working for a diplomatic settlement and Cheney in the doghouse was so much dust in our eyes. Or perhaps Dick has wormed his lovable way back into the deciderer's heart. Who knows?

As it is, the signs that such a war with Iran is imminent becomes more more compelling by the hour. There is still a huge armada in the Persian Gulf. AF personnel are well-rested and do not suffer from the fatigue that the ground troops do. The naval and AF ordnance and resources are stacked high and ready.

Then, of course, you have George, Rex Youdas, displaying apocalyptic fantasies once again in public. Yesterday, for example, in a little-covered speech (that's what floating all those bubbles does, see, it makes such speeches seem like trivialities and old hat, nothing important, just a bunch of verbiage), almost made it a fait accompli.

Born at the Crest of the Empire picked these choice quotes:

(AFP) "The United States demanded Tuesday that Iran end any support for extremists in Iraq "at once" and raised the specter of a "nuclear holocaust" in the Middle East if Tehran gets atomic weapons."

(Speech text) "I want our fellow citizens to consider what would happen if these forces of radicalism and extremism were allowed to drive us out of the Middle East. The region would be dramatically transformed in a way that could imperil the civilized world."

Those are fighting words and this guy is in a corner, facing the oblivion of history or the glory of being the one to save the world from evil. Which would you choose?

And if that weren't sobering enough, consider the following remarks from Col. Lang, a guy whose instincts and experience on these matters I think you should trust:

In fact such a strike would be merely the opening battle in yet another long war fought against a major piece of the Islamic World.

The current IO [Information Operations, i.e., the Defense Department's propaganda wing] campaign against Iran makes it seem more and more plausible that such an onslaught will be attempted.

Then again, don't we deserve this in some weird, twisted way? Didn't most of us applaud George and facilitate his egomania as the guy in the white hat who fights the evil ferners who're out to kill us all?

What or who's going to stop them? The Democrats will not, no matter how many dollars pour into their campaign troughs. They're up to their eyeballs in dining with the AIPAC and Defense Dept. military-industrial technocrats.

Update In response to a post at Lang's blog, I noted the following:

The Dems will not in any way tie Bush's hands on Iran. AIPAC is too strong in both parties. And it's AIPAC and its minions who are pushing hard this idea of hitting Iran.

Dick has what he wants, I think, in Iraq. I wrote several months ago that he and Rumsfeld were telling Der Deciderer that things were sufficiently "contained" in Iraq to go after Iran. Obviously he couldn't make the appearance of that stick in the popular press.

Now, however, with Petraeus conveying confidence and almost spouting success, the perception that Iraq is indeed contained can gain more credence. I say this after listening to two people on NPR talk about Iraq in terms that made Iraq sound like it was on the verge of entering the Emerald City.

This is a liberal talk show and if the impression given by the host and her speakers is so sanguine, then how do you think Der Deciderer feels?

What broke my growing euphoria, though, was a statement during the news break that Condi Rice is sounding the Cheney fight song. It sounds like she's given in and is now on-board with Dick

Updates: Fer "evil ferners" see the comment left by Davie on my very successful post, "Kill All Muslims." (more of which in a second)

Col. Lang has kindly linked to an article explaining further the IO plan of operations vis a vis the Iranian War.

Also see this from Chris Floyd.

Related Links

The Next War, By Wesley K. Clark
Bush setting America up for war with Iran

Read more!

But It's Just a Movie

With Cheney running on low batteries for his heart machine and wanting to take as many with him when he goes as possible, I am just imagining nightmare scenarios here.

I have a basic question about the ability of subversive elements within the government to undermine and in some way bypass law and the constitution.

Is it possible that the Cheneyites/neocons have burrowed so deeply and stealthily into the government infrastructure that they could carry out plans to bring on a war with Iran even without executive knowledge?

I am imagining something along the lines of Syriana where you have these very powerful groups with huge amounts of money outside the govt but who have tentacles deep inside the military/intelligence community.

I've sometimes thought how lucky America has been that it's never had military style coup. I grew up during the days when such a coup seemed a live possibility. I was 8 years old when the film came out, but Seven Days in May made an impression so great that I still remember it.

I know, it's just a movie. Read more!

Vision of the Future?

The UK's Ministry of Defense has issued a 30-year look into the future. While it tries to put a god face on it, the threats posed by climate change, globalization, and rising inequality add a jittery edge to their prognostications.

Lenin's Tomb highlights some of the more important findings, at least with regard to political developments:

Marxism

"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism".

Pressures leading to social unrest

By 2010 more than 50% of the world's population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and "new instability risks", and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. Globalisation may lead to levels of international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of violence.

Population and Resources

The global population is likely to grow to 8.5bn in 2035, with less developed countries accounting for 98% of that. Some 87% of people under the age of 25 live in the developing world. Demographic trends, which will exacerbate economic and social tensions, have serious implications for the environment - including the provision of clean water and other resources - and for international relations. The population of sub-Saharan Africa will increase over the period by 81%, and that of Middle Eastern countries by 132%.

The Middle East

The massive population growth will mean the Middle East, and to a lesser extent north Africa, will remain highly unstable, says the report. It singles out Saudi Arabia, the most lucrative market for British arms, with unemployment levels of 20% and a "youth bulge" in a state whose population has risen from 7 million to 27 million since 1980. "The expectations of growing numbers of young people [in the whole region] many of whom will be confronted by the prospect of endemic unemployment ... are unlikely to be met," says the report.

Islamic militancy

Resentment among young people in the face of unrepresentative regimes "will find outlets in political militancy, including radical political Islam whose concept of Umma, the global Islamic community, and resistance to capitalism may lie uneasily in an international system based on nation-states and global market forces", the report warns. The effects of such resentment will be expressed through the migration of youth populations and global communications, encouraging contacts between diaspora communities and their countries of origin.

Tension between the Islamic world and the west will remain, and may increasingly be targeted at China "whose new-found materialism, economic vibrancy, and institutionalised atheism, will be an anathema to orthodox Islam".

While this isn't exactly end-of-the world apocalypticism, it does pose interesting questions about what a future-oriented theology might look like. Whose side you gonna be on when the State institutes martial law and the hordes bang at the iron gates of fortress America? Read more!