It's coming
Robert Baer thinks a strike on Iran is just around the corner.
Reports that the Bush Administration will put Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list can be read in one of two ways: it's either more bluster or, ominously, a wind-up for a strike on Iran. Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC, maybe within the next six months. And they think that as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran's nuclear facilities.
On Fox News he suggested that what's coming is "not exactly a war." The administration, he said, is convinced "that the Iranians are interfering in Iraq and the rest of the Gulf" and that "an attack on Iran it would be very quick, it would be a warning."
This confirms my biases, so I'm inclined to believe it, but I at this point want desperately to be disabused of this idea. At this point it would make sense if Robert Baer's remaining friends in Washington were the ones inclined to be worried that something as disastrous as a bombing of the IRGC was inevitable. But that doesn't mean they're wrong. Somebody convince me that Robert Baer is an out of touch quack and that one should reflexively believe the opposite of what he writes.
Comments
[note: your link to Raw Story is a 'mailto', not a URL]
Cost free attack on Iran! Get them while they are hot!
When I read this report yesterday I thought to myself: "Gee, the Iranians are going to absorb a US air attack and just take it on the chin." NOT
This is more of the cost free war approach we saw in the leadup to Iraq II. Flowers in the streets. Withdraw in 60 days.
Anyone who believes that Iran won't respond with Persian Gulf missile attacks on the US Navy and oil tankers, and perhaps unleashing Shia militias (and the Iran Revolutionary Guards?) in Iraq is not paying attention to internal Iranian affairs, and ignoring a potential response from Russia and China.
I'm sure hoping that Gates and Admiral Fallon have not lost their cajones, because surely they know that Iran will not take an attack without responding - perhaps in an escalating manner.
Imagine for a few seoonds a US aircraft carrier dunked in the Persian Gulf - those Russian and Chinese missiles are fast - and then think about how likely a US nuclear counter-attack would be - followed by who knows what in the way of south asian turmoil.
These guys are nuts! Fu*king nuts, I say.
I came to a similar conclusion.
It is idiocy upon idiocy. The only rational explanation for even thinking about starting a war with Iran is if the real objective is to go nuclear. They bomb the guard, lose a capital ship or two and decide that the only resort is to go nuclear. Hard to see how they could pull that one off without declaring martial law.
The Democrats have been making a big noise about impeachment being off the table. An attack on Iran that turned into a fiasco would pretty much put impeachment back on the table, but the leaders would be the GOP members worried about 2008.
An Iranian counter-attack would be a considerable blow to the US even if it was at the same level. The Iranians lost a million people when Saddam invaded. Their government is not going to fall over a few tens of thousands of martyrs. The US Congress however would impeach for the loss of a single Nimitz class ship.
The country does not automatically swing behind the President in war. Specifically the country will back the leader when the country is attacked, the same is not true when the country makes an unprovoked attack on another country. Claims that the Iranians are providing weapons to Iraqi insurgents is not the same thing as 9/11 or the attack on Pearl Harbor. Even if true an attack on a US occupation force ain't the same as an attack on the US.
The pretext has no real effect. If the Bushies bomb Iran and it comes off fine nobody is going to care if they didn't have authorization. On the other hand if they attack and it is yet another fiasco nobody who matters is going to accept the ridiculous claim that declaring the guard a terrorist organization means that Congress authorized the attack. Faux news will run with it but nobody else is going to buy it.
Post A Comment