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.