Shifting Targets

Seymor Hersh of the New Yorker reports,

During a secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the British “were on board.” At that point, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interjected that there was a need to proceed carefully, because of the ongoing diplomatic track. Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution.

At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. If Democrats objected, the Administration could say, “Bill Clinton did the same thing; he conducted limited strikes in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Baghdad to protect American lives.” The former intelligence official added, “There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ‘You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.’ But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.”

They’re moving everybody to the Iran desk,” one recently retired C.I.A. official said. “They’re dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It’s just like the fall of 2002”—the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, “The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through.”

The revised bombing plan for a possible attack, with its tightened focus on counterterrorism, is gathering support among generals and admirals in the Pentagon. The strategy calls for the use of sea-launched cruise missiles and more precisely targeted ground attacks and bombing strikes, including plans to destroy the most important Revolutionary Guard training camps, supply depots, and command and control facilities.

“Cheney’s option is now for a fast in and out—for surgical strikes,” the former senior American intelligence official told me. The Joint Chiefs have turned to the Navy, he said, which had been chafing over its role in the Air Force-dominated air war in Iraq. “The Navy’s planes, ships, and cruise missiles are in place in the Gulf and operating daily. They’ve got everything they need—even AWACS are in place and the targets in Iran have been programmed. The Navy is flying FA-18 missions every day in the Gulf.” There are also plans to hit Iran’s anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile sites. “We’ve got to get a path in and a path out,” the former official said.

A Pentagon consultant on counterterrorism told me that, if the bombing campaign took place, it would be accompanied by a series of what he called “short, sharp incursions” by American Special Forces units into suspected Iranian training sites. He said, “Cheney is devoted to this, no question.

The adviser said that he had heard from a source in Iran that the Revolutionary Guards have been telling religious leaders that they can stand up to an American attack. “The Guards are claiming that they can infiltrate American security,” the adviser said. “They are bragging that they have spray-painted an American warship—to signal the Americans that they can get close to them.” (I was told by the former senior intelligence official that there was an unexplained incident, this spring, in which an American warship was spray-painted with a bull’s-eye while docked in Qatar, which may have been the source of the boasts.)

“Do you think those crazies in Tehran are going to say, ‘Uncle Sam is here! We’d better stand down’? ” the former senior intelligence official said. “The reality is an attack will make things ten times warmer."

“Anyone Can Go to Baghdad, Real Men Go to Tehran”

The wonderful folks who brought us the debacle in Iraq aren't done yet.

No, they have plans for President Bush to leave office with a bang.

In a recent encounter with Senator Patty Murray on campus, I told her that many of us were growing concerned about what seems to be preparations for a US attack on Iran.

Then I urged the Senator to put out the statement like the one that Senator Barak Obama recently made in Clinton, Ohio.

Observing a familiar pre-Iraq drumbeat to war, Senator Obama stated, “George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear… you don't have our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war.”

Senator Murray assured me that the president would have to come back to Congress for another resolution for Iran, adding that the Congress has grown increasingly “cynical towards this administration” and their assertions of power.

In an action that took courage, we should remember that Senator Murray initially voted against the Iraq war resolution in 2002.

Pressing further, I said that according to Professor Barnett Rubin and other respected Middle East specialists, under the Cheney-Addington interpretation of the Constitution, the administration would not need to come back to Congress.

If the State Dept were to designate the Revolutionary Guard of Iran a “terrorist organization,” then a military attack would fall under the original Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001, which gave the president authority to attack not only terrorist organizations themselves, but “those who harbor terrorists.”

Senator Murray quickly responded to me, “[we] won't let that happen.”

Unfortunately, her words didn't put me at ease.

Some of Senator Murray's colleagues have tried to put actions behind their words. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia tried to insert language in a recent war supplemental that would've prohibited funding for a strike on the Iran without congressional approval.

But due to intense pressure from AIPAC and other lobbying groups, the Democratic leadership removed the language, leaving the president a carte blanche.

Recent developments however, are more alarming.

Indeed, two senators itching for a war, Sen. Lieberman and Kyl have introduced an amendment on Friday that would “support the…use of all instruments of the United States national power” including “military instruments” against the Republic of Iran.[AG1]

In an article titled “US Officials Began Crafting Iran Bombing Plan,” Fox reporter James Rosen says, “‘everyone in town’ is now [talking] about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran,” sometime in the next eight to 10 months.

The Sunday Telegraph joins the drumbeat to war asserting that, once expressly opposed to the military option, Condoleezza Rice is now prepared to join Cheney and sanction military action.[AG2]

Concerned CIA officials Vincent Cannistraro, and Robert Baer assert, “The decision to attack was made some time ago,” and “there will be an attack on Iran,” respectively.

And adding to the fervor, former Ambassador John Bolton says the US will support an Israeli preemptive strike.

This is important because of the threat of an accidental war or worse, the reported "end run" strategy by the vice president's office.

The strategy consists of ‘nudging’ Israel to launch a small-scale attack on Iran's facilities with the assumption that Iran would retaliate against the massive US buildup in the gulf. The rest, as they say, would follow naturally.

That scenario is much more worrisome and probable.

So who is going to stop this war?

Democrats have already squandered numerous chances to prevent this president from starting a war unilaterally.

It's still possible for Congress to pass legislation to head off this catastrophe... but I'm not holding my breath.

Maybe the military will step in as Rep. Jim McDermott suggested to me recently. After all, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are unanimously opposed, as well as the head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), Admiral William Fallon.

And in a stunning rebuke of one of the administration's main rationales for war, former CENTCOM head General John Abizaid said, “[there] are ways to live with a nuclear Iran.”

Nevertheless, George W. Bush is still Commander-In-Chief (of the Armed Forces) and unsympathetic, outspoken generals tend to be replaced under this administration.

As conservative commentator Pat Buchanan observed, “If Americans sickened by the carnage of Iraq wish to stop an even more disastrous war on Iran, they had best get cracking.”

---

Stark Must Read

Arthur Silber writes,

I. The Current Crisis in Historical Context

Because my title refers to "the final descent" of the United States, I must begin by emphasizing an issue I have discussed in many essays. The destruction of the basic political structure of this country has been a continuing project for well over a century. That destruction has been the purpose of both the Republican and Democratic parties, and it reveals itself in two major ways: through a foreign policy of aggressive, non-defensive interventionism overseas, and by means of an increasingly powerful and intrusive government domestically. It is crucial to see the interconnectedness of these two aspects of the authoritarian, corporatist war state. When states make war, they accrue ever greater powers. Those powers are initially justified by appeals to external threats, which threats are almost always exaggerated and often entirely fictitious. Once the state has acquired those powers, it is a simple matter to alter their focus, and to direct them against alleged internal threats. The purpose in both spheres is always the same: to reduce and eventually eliminate challenges to the exercise of state power, whether such challenges are presented by foreign nations or by domestic dissenters. The ultimate goal is absolute power wielded by an omnipotent state.

As I am discussing in "Dominion Over the World," the United States has been a war state since the Spanish-American War. Beginning with that episode in the non-defensive use of brute military power on the world stage, which was soon followed by the U.S. entrance into World War I (a conflict which had posed no serious direct threat to the U.S., but into which this country's leaders consciously and with careful deliberation chose to insert it), the United States has been perpetually preoccupied with war: preparing for war, fighting endless wars either openly or covertly, and then rebuilding after war. War is our major national product; war consumes an increasingly greater proportion of our national wealth and energies. By such means, the state renders its power unassailable. Perpetual war means the state can create endless opportunities to consolidate and expand its already vast powers.

The current administration is notable for its crudity, its boastful, unapologetic cruelty, and its outright stupidity -- but none of its crimes would have been possible without the policies pursued by Democrats and Republicans alike for many preceding decades. As I summarized this issue in "The Empire at Evening":

With the enactment of the Military Commissions Act, we feel only the vanishing warmth of the final traces of the sun's distant rays, and the shadows lengthen and grow darker. We will not see noon again, or even late afternoon, in our lifetimes.

And all this is not because of George W. Bush, although he has hastened events. How could it be remotely conceivable that such an utterly ridiculous figure would bring down the most powerful nation in the world, even with the aid of his corrupt cabal? He, and they, could not; he, too, is a symptom of the rot that has been eroding the country's foundations for at least a century. Do you think so little of the United States that you truly believe the country you imagine still exists could be destroyed by this?

But Bush is the perfect embodiment of what has brought us here: he captures the arrogance, the determined anti-intellectualism and embarrassing incoherence, the insatiable greed for power and the predilection for violence, and the absolute conviction that fortune and God smile upon him and us as upon no other peoples in the entire span of history, in a single, pathetic, laughable imitation of a genuine human being.

George W. Bush is our fate, and our reward. We have earned him.

I wrote that passage almost one year ago. It remains accurate in every respect. The continuing delusions with which many people seek to console themselves and allay their fears cause me to emphasize one sentence in particular, the meaning of which appears to have escaped many people: "Do you think so little of the United States that you truly believe the country you imagine still exists could be destroyed by this?" If the United States in fact had still existed as the viable political entity that many Americans fantasize about, Bush's crimes would never have been possible in the first instance. If the Democrats represented a genuine alternative in terms of fundamental political principles, they would have taken action to reverse those crimes since taking control of Congress. Most critically -- and particularly if the Democrats cared at all about forestalling an attack on Iran, and preventing widening war and the further entrenchment of the authoritarian state -- they would have begun impeachment proceedings.

But the Democrats have not done this, and they will not. As Chris Floyd wrote recently:

[T]he Bush Administration is now in a far stronger position than it was a year ago.

How can this be? The answer is simple: the United States is no longer a democratic country, or even a degraded semblance of one.

I occasionally see comments to the effect that I am something akin to a prophet of doom, and that I am always announcing that we are about to enter hell on earth. In fact, I have always been careful not to say this, precisely because I cannot know the exact schedule and form of our collapse, just as no one can know such details with any certainty. (I also note that Chris Floyd does not say this either, although he speaks for himself on this point, and many others, with great eloquence.) That the collapse of the United States is coming cannot be seriously disputed. Our economy is a house of cards, as it has been for some time. While it might implode overnight depending on events, it might also fray and shred slowly, over a period of decades. There is no way to know.

In the same way, the extent to which the now terrifying police powers of our government will be applied, and the targets against which they will be directed, cannot be known in advance with any specificity. That, too, will depend on countless factors -- whether the Middle East war widens (or more accurately, when it widens, since that will almost certainly happen under a future Democratic administration if Bush unaccountably fails to accomplish the terrible deed), whether there are further terrorist attacks in the U.S. itself and their severity, etc. Too many variables are in play, and they render particular scenarios exercises in fiction. But the general trend is clear; moreover, history tells us the trend is now irreversible, short of the kind of miracle that does not figure in my metaphysics. There will be further and much more destructive war, and the authoritarian state will make its powers known to the general populace in ways that will constantly increase. Only the timing and the details remain to be determined. Still, for the majority of Americans and as I recently observed, life may continue largely unaltered for some years to come.

Having offered these introductory observations, I note that certain kinds of incidents can reveal in stark and powerful ways the general state of a culture. The public reaction demonstrates what the majority of people are prepared to accept -- and what the government can get away with. Such incidents are barometers of future political developments: if we are attentive to their messages, they can tell us whether people will passively accept whatever actions the state may take, or if they will offer some resistance if the state acts in ways that are particularly cruel and oppressive. Public commentary and debate also reveal to what extent people are eager and willing to obey, and whether certain individuals will say, "No." As I have put it before, such reactions will tell us whether people are with the resistance -- or with the murderers.

Read the rest...

Read This Book

The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot

I normally don't recommend books to people but I can't stop talking about how great this book is. It is simple, poignant, timely, and essential reading for anyone who cares about the country they live in and where it is going.

Don't let the title scare you off, the "end" of America might not be what you have in mind. The end will simply be in America which no longer observes the rule of law, the Constitution. It will be a country that tortures people openly, sometimes with public sanction.

It will be a country that has secret prison systems set up, a country in which American citizens are held and tortured for years without the right to a fair trial.

It will be a country where habeas corpus -- the right to a trial in existence for 600 years since the Magna Carta-- will be discarded upon the sole discretion of the executive.

It will be a country where the media is afraid to speak against those in power.

It will be a country of rampant nationalism and neighbors spying on neighbors all while being spied on by the government. In essence, it will be a very different country then the one you might have grown up in.
Here are the 10 steps;

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy (can be a real enemy!)

2. Create a secret prison system where torture takes place (Guantánamo, CIA black sites)

3. Develop a private army accountable only to the president (CIA, Blackwater)

4. Set up an internal surveillance system and monitor at ordinary citizens (NSA wiretapping)

5. Harass citizens' groups (antiwar groups targeted)

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release (Military Commissions Act, suspend habeas corpus)

7. Target key individuals

8. Control the press (censor, then accuse Bill Keller, editor of New York Times of treason)

9. Dissent equals treason (Fox, right-wing noise machine)

10. Suspend the rule of law (more than 700 signing statements)

Then check out a MUST READ Naomi Wolf interview Read an excerpt before you buy the book:

• Part I The End of America
  
• Part II The End of America
  

Watch Naomi Wolf interviewed on Air America

Listen to a short interview with Sam Seder
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Read also:
Fascist America, in 10 easy steps -- Naomi Wolf, Guardian

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Naomi Wolf v Alan Wolfe in debate, round one

Is America on the road to fascism?

Editor's note: Two weeks ago, Naomi Wolf, author of the forthcoming The End of America, published an essay in the Guardian entitled "Fascist America, in ten easy steps", in which she argued that, "beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society". She went on to list the ten tactics, which included invoking a "terrifying internal and external enemy", establishing a surveillance system and suspending the rule of law. "As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol," Wolf concluded, "the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded."

The piece was one of the week's most widely read and hotly debated, so Comment is Free has invited Wolf back to do a dialogue with Boston College professor (and homophonous namesake) Alan Wolfe, author of the recent book, Does American Democracy Still Work? The dialogue is in two parts. You can read the second one here.

Check out this interview described above with Naomi Wolf, here are some excerpts;

You and I are in the same position -- and everyone on the Internet. We have to switch our model of leadership and return it to the Revolutionary American model of citizen leaders. The Congress is not going to save us. The mainstream media is not going to save us. The pundits are not going to save us. The U.N. is not going to save us. The European Union is not going to save us. There is not a force on earth that can save us, except for our own talking to each other, clearly and urgently, to explain and convey the nature of this threat, and then for us to take radical action NOW. So that's why I wrote it this way.

Our strategy has to be that thousands, and we hope soon millions, of other citizens who are persuaded by the argument will speak to each other and then mobilize in a hurry to confront these abuses. It depends on citizens acting as journalists, citizens acting as advocates, citizens acting as leaders and revolutionaries to mobilize one another. So that's A.

B is, you're absolutely right about the incremental nature of this kind of shift. That's why I spend so much time looking at the early years of earlier such shifts. Americans tend to think that the closing down of a modern parliamentary society happens in some giant, dramatic explosion. But it doesn't. In a democracy as sophisticated or resilient as ours had been, it's going to be closed down incrementally.

If you go back to Berlin in 1931, it wouldn't have looked so unrecognizable to us. There was a Parliament that was meeting there. There was a constitution. There were abortion rights organizations, human rights lawyers and activists. There were gay rights organizations. There was modern art. People were doing what we're doing. People were going to the movies. They kept living -- and that's why I draw on diaries and memoirs and personal accounts. People were doing what we're doing. They were shopping. They were leading their lives, even as the catastrophe was tightening and tightening around them.

...
The really important thing to understand, which is why I walk the reader so carefully through the way democracies really curve down, is democracies can reach a point of no return. And it's sudden when that happens. And it's disorienting. There's a point at which democracy can no longer heal democracy. People have got to understand that. People need to realize that the day we made it legal, essentially, for the state to torture people, that was one of those vertical lines on the chart. We're now in a place where it is legal, the White House has claimed, to knock on your door or my door, and say: You are an enemy combatant. Come with us. Then there is what Jose Padilla went through, in three years of solitary confinement -- making it difficult to see a lawyer, making it difficult to see his family.

You owe it to yourself to watch this all interview. (From a talk she gave at the University of Washington)

Daily Reads

Jordanian Prince El Hassan warns against military action in Iran.

Spineless Democrats call out their own to defend AIPAC.

Greenspan says prime reason for Iraq was oil

read the whole excellent article by Ray McGovern, here are some excerpts:

Greenspan writes:

“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

Then, there were Cheney’s revealing, damning remarks as Halliburton's CEO?

“Oil companies are expected to keep developing enough oil to offset oil depletion and also to meet new demand,” Cheney said in autumn 1999. “So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of 90 percent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. The Middle East with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Daily Reads

The Guardian warns that the proxy core between the US and Iran might turn "hot" soon.

The growing US focus on confronting Iran in a proxy war inside Iraq risks triggering a direct conflict in the next few months, regional analysts are warning.

"The proxy war that has been going on in Iraq may now cross the border. This is a very dangerous period," Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism chief who is now a security analyst, said: "The decision to attack was made some time ago. It will be in two stages. If a smoking gun is found in terms of Iranian interference in Iraq, the US will retaliate on a tactical level, and they will strike against military targets. The second part of this is: Bush has made the decision to launch a strategic attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, although not before next year. He has been lining up some Sunni countries for tacit support for his actions."

Lt. Col. Robert Bowman directs fellow soldiers to disobey orders to attack Iran with nuclear weapons.

Our oath of office is to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Might I suggest that this includes a rogue president and vice-president? Certainly we are bound to carry out the legal orders of our superiors. But the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) which binds all of us enshrines the Nuremberg Principles which this country established after World War II (which you are too young to remember). One of those Nuremberg Principles says that we in the military have not only the right, but also the DUTY to refuse an illegal order. It was on this basis that we executed Nazi officers who were “only carrying out their orders.”

The Constitution which we are sworn to uphold says that treaties entered into by the United States are the “highest law of the land,” equivalent to the Constitution itself. Accordingly, we in the military are sworn to uphold treaty law, including the United Nations charter and the Geneva Convention.

Based on the above, I contend that should some civilian order you to initiate a nuclear attack on Iran (for example), you are duty-bound to refuse that order. I might also suggest that you should consider whether the circumstances demand that you arrest whoever gave the order as a war criminal.

The head of the IAEA warns that the US rhetoric on the Iran sounds a lot like "prewar Iraq"

One million Iraqi dead-- Go Democracy! Hooray for Freedom!

We are no longer in nation of laws, of checks and balances, but of The Executive, The Imperial President, according to Yale law professor Jack Balkan.

We are moving, or more correctly, we have already moved, toward a system of one person rule on matters of war and peace. It is a very dangerous tendency in American constitutionalism. If you think that the Iraq episode has been a disaster, imagine an even more foolhardy and reckless President taking even greater and more dangerous risks. The Iraq war demonstrates that, in the context of modern politics and contemporary security threats, the framers' original system of checks and balances has utterly failed us.

If we put aside the din over the Petraeus testimony before Congress, it should be apparent by now (indeed it was apparent long ago) that the United States will not be ending its involvement in Iraq while George W. Bush is in office. Democrats are divided among themselves about how to proceed and they lack veto-proof majorities even if they were not divided. President Bush will pass the problem of Iraq on to his successor. He does this hoping that he will be vindicated, because, he hopes his successor (and the successor after that) will follow his policies which Bush is convinced will ultimately succeed, If the next President changes course, and withdraws, President Bush believes that he or she, and not Bush, will be blamed for the problems that result. That may seem like wishful thinking, but the American public has a short memory and there are any number of political entrepreneurs that hope to gain an advantage from blaming the next President for the consequences of the mistakes of the previous one.

Of Course, there is a remedy to this madness, but it will not happened as long as the left-wing up the War Party is in power.

Then, there are always chickenhawks who have no problem sending other people to die for their ambitions, what Hannah Arendt called a "desk murderer."

must-read of the day

Stan Goff over at Huffington post rights one of the best essays on the state of the world I've read in a while.

Here are some other things that are not being said:

The average consumption lifestyle of the United States, which keeps politicians in office, is based on extortion, violence, and plunder in places we don't see, and from activities the media seldom mention. To maintain that lifestyle, which is an imperial political payoff for a quiescent home base, requires ever expanding inputs of finite resources -- many from abroad -- and the continued ability to back up financial extortion with military force where necessary. The pivotal resource that makes it possible to make all the other consumer goods, be they cars, clothes, computers, or whatever, is fossil energy. The United States, with five percent of the world's population, used 26% of the word's energy supplies. Our domestic production has been falling since 1973, even as our aggregate demand has continued to rise steeply. The United States has allowed car companies and developers to establish an economic infrastructure that depends absolutely on private automobiles. This massive fleet of around 250 million automobiles runs on oil. This oil cannot be replaced by biofuels, contrary to the bullshit being propogated to support a fresh new vote-buying-and-corporate-welfare scheme for Cargill, Monsanto, and Archer-Daniels-Midland.

Follow the logic.

The US economy cannot continue to operate as it is without guaranteeing its access to fossil fuel that comes from abroad. The establishment wants this to be our dirty little secret, and that's why we twist ourselves in knots talking about it, including deluding ourselves that we can continue our energy profligacy and ignoring the wet work that gets done to maintain control over a region as strategically vital to this end as Southwest Asia. This, of course, means that when Republicrats use coded language about "vital American security interests in the Middle East," they are really talking about maintaining secondary political control over the human beings who live on top of those energy lakes. If you accept that maintaining the American way of life is the highest priority, then you have to accept that the US has to intervene with force when necessary to get the energy supplies, and even that this force be maintained through a constant threat, i.e., a permanent US military presence in the region and support of unsavory regimes to act as our surrogates.

If you believe that people in that part of the world should have the right to decide when, where, and how to use their own resources, then you have to accept that this might result in a dramatic and painful change in the "American way of life."

It's that simple, that stark.

be sure to read the whole thing...

My talk with Senator Patty Murray

Recently I was able to meet with Senator Patty Murray on-campus as she came by to do a press conference and incidentally happened to talk to a few of us there.

I introduced myself as a student senator and I said that many students were growing concerned about the increasing sabre rattling towards Iran and what seems to be preparations for an attack. I told her it that's why we in the ASUW Senate passed a resolution -- R-13-22 -- opposing such a war and I was able to hand it to her, which she seemed interested to take.

While I was trying to convey my feelings that Bush and Cheney could and would indeed attack Iran, I urged the Senator to make a public statement akin to the one that Senator Obama recently made in Clinton Ohio:

We hear eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the President and Vice President talk about Iran. They conflate Iran and al Qaeda. They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven't even tried direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear - loud and clear - from the American people and the Congress: you don't have our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war.

This is the first speech I have heard any of the Democratic front runners unequivocally state that the president doesn't have the authorization for a strike on Iran. I would imagine does not sit well with AIPAC and the other Likud oriented lobbying groups, very powerful entities who "hope and pray" that George Bush attacks Iran, as one commentator put it.

Senator Murray quickly and confidently assured me that the president would have to come back to Congress for another resolution before an attack, adding that the Congress has grown increasingly “cynical towards this administration” and their assertions of power.

We should remember that Senator Murray initially voted against the war, an action that certainly took courage, given the atmosphere at the time.

I then pressed further and said that according to professor Barnett Rubin and other respected Middle East specialists, under the Cheney-Addington interpretation of the Constitution, the administration would not need to come back to Congress before an attack.

Such an attack, if the State Dept were to designate the Revolutionary Guard of Iran a "terrorist organization" formally, would fall under the original Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001, which gave the president authority to attack to not only terrorist organizations themselves, but “those who harbor terrorists.”

Senator Murray responded to me, "we won't let that happen."

You will have to forgive me if her sentiment is not entirely convincing.

The Senator might very well be sincere in her opposition to an attack on Iran. But words alone without actions will not prevent said attack.

Some of Senator Murray's colleagues have indeed put forward such actions. Senator Jim Webb tried to insert language in a war supplemental that would've prohibited funding for an attack on Iran without congressional approval, with exceptions for emergencies.

But due to lobbying pressure from the aforementioned groups, the language was removed by leadership, leaving the president a carte blanche for an attack.

Compounding those facts, recent developments are even more worrying.

In a report titled "US Officials Began Crafting Iran Bombing Plan," James Rosen reports that, “… according to a well-placed Bush administration source, ‘everyone in town’ is now participating in a broad discussion about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran, with the likely timeframe for any such course of action being over the next eight to 10 months…”

Unfortunately I was not able to finish my conversation with her. Senator Murray politely wrapped up our conversation and proceeded with the press conference. Afterwards, she took a few moments to shake all of our hands and thank us for coming and when it came to my turn, she said "thank you and I'll remember what you said."

Later I was able to give her aide Francis a copy of the Rosen article and urged her to take a look at it. As to what happens now, I guess we all just keep working at it. This brings to mind an appropriate quote by Danillo Dolci,

It’s senseless to speak of optimism or
pessimism. The only important thing is to know that if one
works well in a potato field, the potatoes will grow. If one
works well among men, they will grow—that’s reality. The rest is smoke. It’s important to know that words don’t move mountains. Work, exacting work, moves mountains.

Daily Reads

Fox noise reports US Officials Began Crafting Iran Bombing Plan.

Consequently, according to a well-placed Bush administration source, "everyone in town" is now participating in a broad discussion about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran, with the likely timeframe for any such course of action being over the next eight to 10 months, after the presidential primaries have probably been decided, but well before the November 2008 elections

The Jerusalem Post reports about a possible attack next summer.

US General thinks Iran bombing will be 'easy.'

Forty-eight hours duration, hitting 2500 aimed points to take out their [Iranian] nuclear facilities, their air defense facilities, their air force, their navy, their Shahab-3 retaliatory missiles, and finally their command and control. And then let the Iranian people take their country back," the general said describing the campaign, adding it would be "easy."

The McInerney statement was made following a Fox News report that U.S. "officials are making plans to attack Iran as early as next summer," since Washington believes diplomatic efforts have failed.

Senator Obama goes on the record to unequivocally oppose an attack on Iran,

We hear eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the President and Vice President talk about Iran. They conflate Iran and al Qaeda. They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven't even tried direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear - loud and clear - from the American people and the Congress: you don't have our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war.

Fox noise the continuing the drum beating towards war.

Foreign Policy rights about the Epidemic of Denial.

Next thing you know, you'll start hearing folks at AEI saying that Iran was responsible for 9/11. Wait a minute, that's already happening, as Peter Beinart pointed out in Sunday's New York Times. "It's the 2007 equivalent of the claims made in 2002 and 2003 about Iraq," Beinart noted. "The years between 9/11 and the Iraq war gave rise to a cottage industry ... charging that Saddam Hussein was the hidden mastermind behind a decade of jihadist terror. While refuted by the 9/11 Commission and mainstream terror experts, these claims had a political effect."

Looks like it's time to stop the epidemic of denial that has the foreign-policy community convinced that an attack on Iran is out of the question. Before it's too late.

Crooks and Liars puts out and action alert on Iran (it's about time! let's hope it's the first of many!).

For some lighter reading, there is always the topic of loose nukes.

Admiral Fallon is THE MAN

My New Hero CENTCOM Commander Admiral William Fallon lets his thoughts ("an ass-kissing little chickenshit") on Petraeus known.

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

The CENTCOM commander believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region. "He is very focused on Pakistan," said a source familiar with Fallon's thinking, "and trying to maintain a difficult status quo with Iran."

Fallon acquired a reputation for a willingness to stand up to powerful figures during his tenure as commander in chief of the Pacific Command from February 2005 to March 2007. He pushed hard for a conciliatory line toward and China, which put him in conflict with senior military and civilian officials with a vested interest in pointing to China as a future rival and threat.

He demonstrated his independence from the White House when he refused in February to go along with a proposal to send a third naval carrier task force to the Persian Gulf, as reported by IPS in May. Fallon questioned the military necessity for the move, which would have signaled to Iran a readiness to go to war. Fallon also privately vowed that there would be no war against Iran on his watch, implying that he would quit rather than accept such a policy.

Daily Reads, Iran, hegemony, nukes, global warming, and more

The British push for war with Iran along the border.

Scott Horton describes a possible imminent aerial bombing envisioned by two British academics.

Booman rights about US hegemony.

Republican congressmen Boehner thinks 3500+ US troops killed, and likely one million Iraqis killed "a small price to pay," for freedom, or to beat Al Qaeda, or democracy, or whatever the rationale of the week is.

The fracture of global warming will mimic nuclear war.

Two Soldiers critical of the war killed.

Ex-Submariner Richard Blair, who is familiar with nuclear weapons handling, thinks the Air Force LOST A NUKE.

Speaking of, Russia tests a mega bomb with force comparable to nuclear.

Here is a selection of quotes to help keep the hope.

Educate Yourself about the Constitution.

Occupation Making America safer? Petraeus: "I don't know"

Crooks and Liars has the video.

A visibly emotional Sen. Joe Biden and Chris Matthews discuss the ramifications of Gen. Petraeus’s surprisingly unvarnished answer that he couldn’t say that our presence in Iraq was making us any safer

The military wants a large, rapid withdrawal of most of the troops... Why do the generals hate America?

from Newsweek, (ht emptywheel)

NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.

read full article...

Chomsky on 9/11, Mike Scheuer, Iran attack plans,

Chomsky gives an interview on 9/11.

Q: How do you observe the influence of the 9-11 terrorist attack on the international community now? Is that influence stronger or weaker than right after the attack?

A: The first thing I said [right after 9-11] was that it is obvious that every government in the world is going to use this as an excuse to intensify its own repression and often violence. [And governments] would use it to control their own citizens with things called protection against terrorism acts, increasing governmental control over citizens. So it was predictable that every power system would exploit it as an excuse. Of course it (the invasion of Iraq) had a major impact on world affairs [It] has also significantly increased the threat of terror.

It did happen, far beyond what was anticipated. In fact, in the latest estimate I have seen, the official statistic is that terror increased by a factor of 7 as a result of the invasion in Iraq.

That's why many specialists like Michael Scheuer (Head of the Osama Bin Laden sector of the CIA under Clinton) describe (US President George W) Bush as Bin Laden's main ally. He says he is doing whatever he wants to do, so acted in such a way as to justify his appeal to the Islamic world and increased the threat of terror.

Listen to an interview with Scheuer here.

British Academics warn that US is prepare Shock & Awe on Iran.

And Chris Floyd on the new base the Pentagon is building on the Iranian border.

9/11

Iran developments, various reading on 9/11, bin Laden,the draft, racism, and more.

The Agonist shows how to plan in insane war in three fun filled steps, including more on building of base on the Iranian border. Hmmmm I wonder how we would react if China built the base in Toronto or Vancouver BC?

In what I see as some good news, there is some dissent going on in the military with CENTCOM Commander Admiral William Fallon at odds with his subordinate and BushCo affiliate General David Petraeus. FYI, Fallon is in charge of CENTCOM which mean central command, which includes Afghanistan, Iraq, and... Iran. Luckily for everyone he has said that an attack on Iran "on his watch." He is also threatened to resign and go public if ordered to do so. He is not alone thankfully, joined by unanimous support among the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Now for the not so great news. Michael Salla writes some very interesting article about the recent B-52 nuclear weapons fiasco and some really fishy insider-trading.

On August 30, a B-52 bomber armed with five nuclear-tipped Advanced Cruise missiles traveled from Minot Air Force base, North Dakota, to Barksdale Air Force base, Louisiana. Each missile had an adjustable yield between five and 150 kilotons of TNT which is at the lower end of the destructive capacities of U.S. nuclear weapons. For example, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 13 kilotons, while the Bravo Hydrogen bomb test of 1954 had a yield of 15,000 kilotons. The B-52 story was first covered in the Army Times on September 5 after the nuclear armed aircraft was discovered by Airmen (see: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/09/marine_nuclear_B52_070904w/ ). What made this a very significant event was that it was a violation of U.S. Air Force regulations concerning the transportation of nuclear weapons by air. Nuclear weapons are normally transported by air in specially constructed planes designed to prevent radioactive pollution in case of a crash. Such transport planes are not equipped to launch the nuclear weapons they routinely carry around the U.S. and the world for servicing or positioning.

Conclusion: Exposing those Responsible for the B-52 Incident

Consequently, there is considerable circumstantial evidence to argue that the nuclear armed B-52 was part of a covert operation, outside the regular chain of military command. The most plausible authority responsible for this was Vice President Cheney. He very likely used the Secret Service to take charge of a contrived National Special Security Event involving a nuclear armed B-52 that would be flown from Minot AFB. The B-52 was directed to Barksdale Air Force base where it would have conducted a covert mission to the Middle East involving the detonation of one or more nuclear weapons most likely in or in the vicinity of Iran. This could either have occurred during a conventional military strike against Iran, or a False Flag operation in the Persian Gulf region.

The leaking and discovery of the nuclear armed B-52 at Barksdale was not part of the script. According to a confidential source of Larry Johnson, a former counter-terrorism official from the State Department and CIA, the discovery of the nuclear armed B-52 was leaked. Johnson concludes: “Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran? I don’t know, but it is a question worth asking.” http://tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/05/staging_nuke_for_iran

NewsHoggers reports that there is a growing effort to oust Mohammed El Baradei.

By Cernig

The Bush administration are mounting another major attempt, behind the scenes, to oust Mohammed El Baradei. Bush and his supporters have had the knives out for the IAEA's director ever since he said prior to the invasion that Iraq had no WMD's and was proven right.

Now, they are annoyed that he has done what the UNSC told him to do - work to clear up outstanding issues regarding Iran's nuclear program. With a whiff of dirty tricks just to add some sleaze to stupidity. Thus proving that they never really cared about solving disputes over Iran's nuclear program or making the world a safer place - they just wanted the IAEA - and thus the UNSC - to rubberstamp their push for war.

Senator Mike Gravel on the lessons of 9/11. Huffpost

Troops are growing increasingly critical and resentful of the occupation. (ht C&L)

“President Eisenhower warned of the growing military industrial complex in his farewell address. Since Dick Cheney can now afford solid gold oil derricks, it’s safe to say we failed Ike miserably. After losing two friends and over a dozen comrades, I have this to say: Do not wage war unless it is absolutely, positively the last ditch effort for survival,” wrote Spc. Alex Horton, 22, of the 3rd Stryker Brigade in Army of Dude. “In the future, I want my children to grow up with the belief that what I did here was wrong, in a society that doesn’t deem that idea unpatriotic,” he blogged.

Professor Juan Cole questions the authenticity of the recent bin Laden video.

the LA Times reports understudy confirming the differences between liberals and conservatives' brain functioning.

Here is interesting article about warfare and the draft.

And no folks, racism is not a thing of the past, it's very much institutionalized and a way of life in some parts of America.

Bin Laden wanted US to invade Iraq, author says

A journalist who interviewed bin Laden says bin Laden wanted US to invade ME, Via ABC,

TONY JONES: When you met bin Laden, he told you that his long-term plan was to "bring the Americans into a fight on Muslim soil". That must have sounded like madness at the time, but now we have Iraq.

ABDUL BARI ATWAN: It seems Osama bin Laden had a long-term strategy. He told me personally that he can't go and fight the Americans and their country. But if he manages to provoke them and bring them to the Middle East and to their Muslim worlds, where he can find them or fight them on his own turf, he will actually teach them a lesson. It seems the invasion of Iraq fulfilled Osama bin Laden's wish. That's why the Americans are losing in Iraq, financially and on a human basis, and even their allies, including Australia, are really losing patience, losing money, losing personnel, losing reputation in that part of the world.

Scott Ritter on Iraq

From Truthdig,

Now we come to the third and perhaps most difficult question: “Why?” In some odd way, Katie Couric’s jaunt to Iraq answers that question: Because Americans truly don’t care. Oh, we care about vague softball issues, such as “conditions in the street,” “fear,” and of course, “how the American troops are really doing,” especially when they are fed to us in 30-second sound bites or three-minute “in-depth” stories. Little feel good segments planted in between commercials, designed not to infringe on our intellectual curiosity for more than 30 minutes so we don’t loose our focus watching the latest “reality” show or made-for-television drama.

The fact is, Couric’s made-for-television news is to what is really happening in Iraq as “CSI: Las Vegas” is to what is really happening on the streets of Sin City. CBS knows that, which is why they are packaging Katie in this fashion. The shame is that for most Americans watching, they think they’re getting the real deal. They are not, but will continue to wallow in their ignorant indifference. Katie will struggle to tell us that our kids keep dying in Iraq to “improve the quality of life” and “reduce the level of fear” on the streets of Baghdad. She solemnly informs us that “our boys and girls” are suffering, but they know it is in support of a just and noble cause. Katie will continue to report the story in Iraq from the perspective of an American political dynamic, not Iraqi reality.

Thoughtful Essay on the Israeli lobby

A good read on the subject, which asks some pressing questions. The article essentially asks are "Pro Israel" strategies pushed by the Lobby really beneficial for either America or Israel. The answer is no, neither country benefits as MJ Rosenberg argues. (hat tip Erza Klein)

Iran Attack Summary

Professor Barnett Rubin concludes,

The alternative of war will have terrible effects including:

• No support for the U.S. from any country but Israel (though Saudi Arabia and other Arab states may not be too unhappy) and the demolition of whatever still remains of the U.S.’s international standing except as a warmaking power; that reputation will also quickly dissipate as this war, too, fails to achieve its objectives.
  
• Rapid deterioration of security in (at least) Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; note that much of the support for Benazir Bhutto, whom the U.S. hopes will help shepherd a political transition in Pakistan, comes from Pakistani Shi’a, who will turn violently anti-American in the event of an attack on Iran; northern Afghanistan is also under the de facto control of groups supported by Iran against the Taliban; the government of Iraq in Baghdad will oppose an attack on Iran, but our new friends in Anbar province, whom President Bush visited on Labor Day and who fought Iran for Saddam Hussein, will support it and maybe even volunteer to fight.
• Gasoline prices may reach $7/gallon within a week and probably go higher rapidly, especially if Iran makes even partially successful attempts to block the Strait of Hormuz.
• Either there will be a movement of national solidarity against invasion in Iran from across the entire Iranian political spectrum, or (less likely) Iran will collapse into some kind of civil disorder, with nuclear materials littered about.
• Hizbullah and Hamas will unleash missile attacks and perhaps suicide bombings on Israel, and Israel will respond harshly in Lebanon and Gaza (at least).
• Such an attack will also have other unpredictable consequences, which I will therefore not try to predict.

What course of action do I suggest?

The immediate goal for Democratic presidential candidates and the Democrats (and sensible Republicans) in Congress should be to use the power of the legislative branch to prevent the administration from launching a war. I can think of two possible ways to do this:

• Pass an Act of Congress stating that the 2001 AUMF does not authorize a preemptive strike against Iran (or a strike in response to an alleged provocation – recall Tonkin Gulf). In this case, Congress would claim that war with Iran requires new authorization.
• Cut off funding for any war with Iran not specifically authorized by Congress in accordance with the law after September 30, when spending starts out of next year’s budget. Presumably they won’t be able to start the war by then and rely on the “support the troops” argument.

Oh my... escalating tensions

Reuters reports,

DAMASCUS - Syria accused Israel of bombing its territory on Thursday and said it could respond to its neighbor’s “aggression and treachery”.

Israel refused all comment on the report, which said no casualties or damage were caused.

Oil prices were up more than $1.40 a barrel, in part on concerns over the reported attack.

After months in which talk of reviving long-stalled peace negotiations has been mixed with speculation on both sides that the other was preparing a surprise attack, Syrian officials hit out.

“This shows that Israel cannot give up aggression and treachery,” Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal told al-Jazeera television.

Another Syrian official said: “They dropped bombs on an empty area while our air defenses were firing heavily at them.”

The Israeli military spokesman’s office said in a statement: “It is not our custom to
respond to these kinds of reports.”

AP has similar report,

Enemy Israeli planes penetrated Syrian airspace from the Mediterranean Sea heading towards the northeast, breaking the sound barrier," an army spokesman told the official SANA news agency.

"Our air defences repulsed them and forced them to leave...after the Israeli planes dropped ammunition, without causing human or material loss," he said.

"The Syrian Arab Republic warns the government of the Israeli enemy against this aggressive action and reserves the right to respond in any way it deems appropriate."

There was no immediate response from Israel.

Iran Developments...

UPI is on target with a good summary on the War Rollout,

By DAVID ISENBERG
UPI Outside View Commentator
WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card once famously said of the administration’s 2002 campaign to get support for the invasion of Iraq, ''From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.''

Now August is behind us, and -- right on schedule -- marketers both in the White House and among their supporters outside are rolling out their newest product, a public relations blitz urging a U.S. military adventure in Iran.

Michael Scheuer, Former head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA writes about the "threat" Iran poses:

And then there is Iran. How does one explain the U.S. governing elite's fear of Iran? Here we have a country that admittedly is led by one of the world's more histrionic politicians, but one that also is ringed by U.S. military bases and surrounded by an overwhelmingly more numerous Sunni world that hates Shi'ites far more than it hates Westerners. Iran‘s Islamic regime, moreover, is helplessly watching the final stages of the march of its energy resources toward oblivion, and preparing for the impoverishment and resulting internal political instability that event will usher in.

So where in this portrait is the threat to the United States? While Iran is a threat to Israel, there is surely no threat to America in Iran's less-than-impressive military forces, nuclear development program, or unattractive public diplomacy. No, the threat to the United States comes from two sources. First, the relentless "Iran is the new Nazi Germany" propaganda pushed by Israel and the American citizen Israel-firsters, and, second, the multi-decade failure of the U.S. Congress to seriously address the national-security issues of energy, borders, and immigration.

As in the case of Syria – although for fewer years because Iran's previous tyrant was on America's side until the Mullahs seized power in 1979 – most American adults have grown up with the idea that Iran is a dire threat to U.S. national security. Sparked mainly by memories of the U.S. embassy hostages held for 400-plus days while President Carter diddled, Americans have been ripe for the delusions induced by the periodic visits of Binyamin Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians, and their well-staged rants that equate the creaky, mostly foreign-purchased, and slightly more than tin-pot military machine of the Ayatollahs with Hitler's Wehrmacht, the product of an extremely modern industrial economy, a united populace ready for revenge against its conquerors, and the Germans' apparently genetic talent and taste for war. To say that Netanyahu, other Israeli politicians, and their American Israel-first supporters are being disingenuous in pushing the Iranian threat would be incorrect. They are consistently and blatantly lying.

No, the threat to the United States from Iran is not military, it is rather from America‘s most dangerous home-grown terrorists – the U.S. Congress. Iran threatens America economically because it has the capability to disrupt oil production in Saudi Arabia's Eastern province. Such an Iranian effort would be a casus belli for the United States only because the U.S. Congress has done nothing more substantial than advance Daylight Savings Time by three weeks since the Saudi-led embargoes of the 1970s. Thirty-five years of the Congress' utter failure to address energy security as a top priority national interest has made Iran a threat to America that it otherwise could not be.

MSNBC spewing more Propaganda,

Digby follows up on the Nuclear weapons story,

for his future and others

Nukes for Iran

Former CIA Officer Larry Johnson writes at No Quarter,

Why the hubbub over a B-52 taking off from a B-52 base in Minot, North Dakota and subsequently landing at a B-52 base in Barksdale, Louisiana? That’s like getting excited if you see a postal worker in uniform walking out of a post office. And how does someone watching a B-52 land identify the cruise missiles as nukes? It just does not make sense.

So I called a old friend and retired B-52 pilot and asked him. What he told me offers one compelling case of circumstantial evidence. My buddy, let’s call him Jack D. Ripper, reminded me that the only times you put weapons on a plane is when they are on alert or if you are tasked to move the weapons to a specific site.

Then he told me something I had not heard before.

Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations. Gee, why would we want cruise missile nukes at Barksdale Air Force Base. Can’t imagine we would need to use them in Iraq. Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations?

His final point was to observe that someone on the inside obviously leaked the info that the planes were carrying nukes. A B-52 landing at Barksdale is a non-event. A B-52 landing with nukes. That is something else.

Propaganda on Iran, why Bush will get away with it

Glenn Greenwald provides an excellent analysis of the starting media propaganda campaign for war.

Rolling out the New Product over at No Quarter, discussing some of the "coincidental" propaganda that is coming out indicting Iran.

News Hounds documents the warmongering Michael Ledeen as he sprouts out various lies and propaganda while Hannity salivates at the thought of another illegal war of aggression, which by the way, is what we hung the Nazis for... I'm just saying. ( with video)

The De.cider on Iran over at The Next Hurrah discussing some of the finer intellectual points coming out of The Commander Guys'.

Jean Bricmont makes an argument on why he thinks Bush will get away with an attack on Iran.

Antiwar Radio interviews Andrew Bacewich on Iraq, Iran

From Antiwar.com, with more interviews,

Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University and author of The New American Militarism, and The Long War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy Since World War II, discusses the president’s comparison of Iraq to Vietnam, and some realistic ones.

MP3 here. (16:35)

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of international relations at Boston University. A graduate of the U. S. Military Academy, he received his Ph. D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University. Before joining the faculty of Boston University in 1998, he taught at West Point and at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Bacevich is the editor of The Long War: A New History of US National Security Policy since World War II (2007). His previous books include American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U. S. Diplomacy (2002), The Imperial Tense: Problems and Prospects of American Empire (2003), and The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005). His essays and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of scholarly and general interest publications including The Wilson Quarterly, The National Interest, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Nation, The American Conservative, and The New Republic . His op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today, among other newspapers.

Various Reads

Scott Horton of Harper's on why Bush is going to war with Iran in the significance of his recent photo op,

Still, why the unannounced sudden stop in Iraq? A few explanations. One, Bush announced what the so-called Petraeus Report will tell us. Evidently, the Surge is a success and this will justify a draw-down before the end of the year. So no need for General Petraeus to finish up that report; we know what it will say.

But here’s the news that may be lurking just behind the news. Military commanders urged a draw-down to occur before the commencement of military operations against Iran. Bush is accepting this recommendation only because he has mentally committed to an aerial campaign against Iran. He will therefore follow the general’s advice to get soldiers out of harm’s way, off to positions which are more secure in the event of an Iranian counterattack.

Throughout the Gulf area, moves are underway at this moment which are consistent with preparation for an aerial assault on Iran.

And how will the Bush appearance in Anbar be understood inside of the region? Bush aligns himself with Iraq’s Sunni minority, against the Shi’a Government in Baghdad, and in preparation for a massive attack on Shi’a Iran. We’re witnessing the latest dramatic summersault in U.S. policy on Iraq, and most of our brain dead punditry on the Potomac hardly even seem to notice.

Bush and his core White House team have come to a key conclusion. The Iraq War is going very poorly. Time for a new war.

Obama adds fuel to the Bush fire,

the Washington Times reports on the Sarkozy visit to the Bush compound and what it means for Iran,

then, Barrett Rubin follows up on his lead uncovering the propaganda push for war,

Wow... stunning

Just stop what you're doing and watch this. Then send it to everyone you know.

Various Reads on Iran

Gareth Porter on Israel urging an attack on Iran not Iraq in the Asia Times,

Israel urged US to attack Iran - not Iraq

By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - Israeli officials warned the George W Bush administration that an invasion of Iraq would be destabilizing to the region and urged the United States instead to target Iran as the primary enemy, according to former Bush administration official Lawrence Wilkerson.

Wilkerson, then a member of the US State Department's policy planning staff and later chief of staff for secretary of state Colin Powell, recalled in an interview that the Israelis reacted
immediately to indications that the Bush administration was thinking of war against Iraq. After the Israeli government picked up the first signs of that intention, said Wilkerson, "The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy - Iran is the enemy."

Wilkerson describes the Israeli message to the Bush administration in early 2002 as being, "If you are going to destabilize the balance of power, do it against the main enemy."

Vineyardsaker reports on the 200,000+ US hostages Iran will take soon,

David Bromwich in an intelligent essay on Israel and Iran, here is a snippet but I do reccomend reading it all,

But now the American war with Iran they originally wanted is coming closer. Last Tuesday, when the mass media were crammed to distraction with the behavior of a senator in an airport washroom, few could be troubled to notice an important speech by President Bush. If Iran is allowed to persist in its present state, the president told the American Legion convention in Reno, it threatens "to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust." He said he had no intention of allowing that; and so he has "authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities." Those words come close to saying not that a war is coming but that it is already here. No lawmaker who reads them can affect the slightest shock at any action the president takes against Iran.

George Packer of the New Yorker, confirming the propaganda push,

Postscript: Barnett Rubin just called me. His source spoke with a neocon think-tanker who corroborated the story of the propaganda campaign and had this to say about it: “I am a Republican. I am a conservative. But I’m not a raging lunatic. This is lunatic."

Todd Gitlin of TPM Cafe with similar discussion,

Alan Bock of Antiwar.com, once a skeptic who downplayed the likelyhood of an attack on Iran, now a "little less certain."

Howard A. Rodman of Huffington Post, also once a skeptic, now describes how he stopped worrying and learned to love the bombing of Iran. Plus, he throws in this gem,

As Bush this weekend was disclosed to have said to his biographer, "I made a decision to lead... One, it makes you unpopular; two, it makes people accuse you of unilateral arrogance, and that may be true. But the fundamental question is, is the world better off as a result of your leadership?"

Iranian-Americian Reza Aslan describes the attitude of Iranians inside Iran (looking up in the sky waiting for the bombs to drop),

And finally US Navy Commander Jeff Huber analyzes the latest bellicose rhetoric at his blog.

Must Reads of the day

Chris Floyd with one of the most powerful essays I've read yet and that I'm still trying to get my head around.,

I.
Tomorrow is here. The game is over. The crisis has passed -- and the patient is dead. Whatever dream you had about what America is, it isn't that anymore. It's gone. And not just in some abstract sense, some metaphorical or mythological sense, but down in the nitty-gritty, in the concrete realities of institutional structures and legal frameworks, of policy and process, even down to the physical nature of the landscape and the way that people live.

The Republic you wanted -- and at one time might have had the power to take back -- is finished. You no longer have the power to keep it; it's not there. It was kidnapped in December 2000, raped by the primed and ready exploiters of 9/11, whored by the war pimps of the 2003 aggression, gut-knifed by the corrupters of the 2004 vote, and raped again by its "rescuers" after the 2006 election. Beaten, abused, diseased and abandoned, it finally died. We are living in its grave.

The annus horribilis of 2007 has turned out to be a year of triumph for the Bush Faction -- the hit men who delivered the coup de grâce to the long-moribund Republic. Bush was written off as a lame duck after the Democrat's November 2006 election "triumph" (in fact, the narrowest of victories eked out despite an orgy of cheating and fixing by the losers), and the subsequent salvo of Establishment consensus from the Iraq Study Group, advocating a de-escalation of the war in Iraq. Then came a series of scandals, investigations, high-profile resignations, even the criminal conviction of a top White House official. But despite all this -- and abysmal poll ratings as well -- over the past eight months Bush and his coupsters have seen every single element of their violent tyranny confirmed, countenanced and extended.

The war which we were told the Democrats and ISG consensus would end or wind down has of course been escalated to its greatest level yet -- more troops, more airstrikes, more mercenaries, more Iraqi captives swelling the mammoth prison camps of the occupying power, more instability destroying the very fabric of Iraqi society. The patently illegal surveillance programs of the authoritarian regime have now been codified into law by the Democratic Congress, which has also let stand the evisceration of habeas corpus in the Military Commissions Act, and a raft of other liberty-stripping laws, rules, regulations and executive orders. Bush's self-proclaimed arbitrary power to seize American citizens (and others) without charge and hold them indefinitely -- even kill them -- has likewise been unchallenged by the legislators. Bush has brazenly defied Congressional subpoenas -- and even arbitrarily stripped the Justice Department of the power to enforce them -- to no other reaction than a stern promise from Democratic leaders to "look further into this matter." His spokesmen -- and his "signing statements" -- now openly proclaim his utter disdain for representative government, and assert at every turn his sovereign right to "interpret" -- or ignore -- legislation as he wishes. He retains the right to "interpret" just which interrogation techniques are classified as torture and which are not, while his concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay and his secret CIA prisons -- where those "strenuous" techniques are practiced -- remain open. His increasingly brazen drive to war with Iran has already been endorsed unanimously by the Senate and overwhelmingly by the House, both of which have embraced the specious casus belli concocted by the Bush Regime. And to come full circle, Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin are now praising the "military success" of the Iraq escalation -- despite the evident failure of its stated goals by every single measure, including troop deaths, civilian deaths, security, infrastructure, political cohesion and regional stability. This emerging "bipartisan consensus" on the military situation in Iraq (or rather, this utter fantasy concealing a rapidly deteriorating reality) makes it certain that the September "progress report" will be greeted as a justification for continuing the "surge" in one form or another.

It is, by any measure, a remarkable achievement, one of the greatest political feats ever. Despite Bush's standing as one of the most despised presidents in American history, despite a Congress in control of the opposition party, despite a solid majority opposed to his policies and his war, despite an Administration riddled with scandal and crime, despite the glaring rot in the nation's infrastructure and the callous abandonment of one of the nation's major cities to natural disaster and crony greed -- despite all of this, and much more that would have brought down or mortally wounded any government in a democratic country, the Bush Administration is now in a far stronger position than it was a year ago.

How can this be? The answer is simple: the United States is no longer a democratic country, or even a degraded semblance of one.

and Arthur Silber,

The destruction of America has been accomplished in the manner of a particularly skillful and diabolical con game: it has been done completely in the open. No one was fooled or misled. The ruling class has always stated explicitly exactly what they intended to do -- and then they did it. You didn't think they meant it, not really, not all the way down.

But they did. They counted on the great majority of Americans not to believe what was directly before their eyes, or to identify its full, inevitable meaning. Most of you obliged. Most of you still oblige. They could not ask for more.

And most Americans still don't believe the destruction has already occurred, because there is no thunderous crashing of chords, no widespread calamity or destruction (at least, not yet, although we've had some previews) or, as Chris puts it, it won't come "with jackboots and book burnings," or with "tanks on the street." Poor, pitiful, pathetic Americans: it isn't like a movie.

And so it has come to pass. The lives of most Americans will go on as before, for that is the plan and the point. Be careful not to credit the ruling class with too much cleverness or intelligence for having achieved their heinous end, for most of them don't begin to understand what they're doing either. They are moved for the most part by the views of the "consensus," which views come from they not know where, nor do they care about or understand the original reasons. Their concern is much narrower: consolidating and expanding their own power, and that of the State. Their focus is on how power is actualized in the petty, sordid details of their pallid, drab, arid lives. The larger dynamics never concerned them, and they don't give a damn about any of that today.

Even after all this, the Democrats will impeach no one, and they will only accelerate the drive to open conflict with Iran. To do otherwise would be to restrict the power of the State, and their own power. That is the one thing above all else they will never do. And even if, by some undeserved miracle, the Bush administration does not order an attack on Iran, the pattern is now set.

I hope they are both wrong but in light of the book I'm currently reading, I fail to see how they could be.