by Tan Copsey
For, if freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, then Bush is a free man—free to pursue the most malignant policies, heedless of the consequences to his unworsenable presidential standing. Beware the desperation of a cornered man.’ Bernard Chazelle’s - Bush the Empire Slayer.
The volume of chatter about some sort of attack on Iran is increasing. Across the internets, and within more traditional media, it’s obvious to most that something is afoot. The chatter is of such volume that it now reverberates around oDHQ here in London, prompting further discussion and debate, as well as Dariush Zahedi and Omid Memarian’s excellent article. In what will likely be the one of a number of posts on this topic (check out last week’s gloomy past-form if you’re interested. I will here relay and recount some of the chatter, before indulging in a little speculation as to the fall-out from this all. With the Doomsday clock being moved ever closer to midnight, I can only hope to remain on the topic of political fallout, and not the real thing.
The Washington Note has recounted speculation that over the weekend ‘the President sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran...’. This post also details an interesting exchange between Secretary of State Condelezza Rice and Senator Joe Biden, in which Rice skirts the question of whether Bush can constitutionally authorise entry of US troops into Iran or Syria, and opts instead to emphasise a broad interpretation of executive powers.
One can mention what seems to be a fundamental extension of the neo-conservative agenda without at least surveying their madness. Salon has this week featured an interesting, if ultimately sickening, interview with aged hawks-hawk Michael Ledeen in which he outlines his plans for ‘revolution’ in Iran. Elsewhere along with providing the usual gung-ho pro-bush rhetoric, Scott Johnson at Powerline definitely thinks that Tehran is calling and is now jamming all the ‘evidence’ he can find into his suitcase and heading down to Iranair though possibly just to look for WMD marked ‘to Israel’. Accepted as an article of faith by many of the arch-conservative creed is the tub-thumping delusion, articulated here by Joel Rosenberg, that Iran will be sending nuclear tipped warheads Israel’s way anytime now. The echoes of the build up to the invasion of Iraq and Saddam’s apparent ability to send WMD our way are here to obvious to omit.
The problem with chatter of this sort is that the sheer volume may be drowning out what’s really going on. There remains the possibility that this is something of a phony war fought mainly here in the media and through (un)diplomatic channels, designed to destabilise or in some way cow Iran and reduce its growing regional influence. Of course even if this was the case, the instability that will result is all too real, and given recent history one would be unwise to assume that when Bush rattles his sabre, he doesn’t plan on slashing everyone in the room.
