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.

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.

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,

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.

Barnett R. Rubin with more on Iran

Administration's Iran, drug policies endanger Afghanistan

The Sunday Times of London reports from Washington a story I have not seen in any U.S. media: that "the Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive air strikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days." This report, attributed to Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, is consistent with the diary on DailyKos that I cited yesterday reporting that a Naval Officer on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf warned that all operational planning for such a strike had been completed.

According to Debat, speaking at a meeting sponsored by the journal National Interest, edited by Irving Kristol, father of Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol:

US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

As in the run-up to the war in Iraq, President Bush is maintaining the fiction that he is "committed for now to the diplomatic route," but many signs indicate that the decision to attack has been taken as irrevocably as the decision to attack Iraq in the fall of 2002.

The legal argument to bypass the U.S. Congress has already been floated. As I noted in my DailyKos post:

The U.S. cannot mount a ground invasion or occupation of Iran, but it might be capable of an air attack and sea embargo. The administration has prepared a legal justification by floating its plan to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. Since the IRGC is under the command of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, the administration, with its usual legal acuity, could claim legal authority for an attack on Iran under Senate Joint Resolution 23 of September 18, 2001,which authorized the use of military force against "those who plan, authorize, commit, or aid terrorist attacks against the United States and its interests -- including those who harbor terrorists."

Will President Bush bomb Iran?

via the Telegraph.

On Tuesday, President Bush dramatically stepped up his war of words with the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom the US government accuses of overseeing a covert programme to develop nuclear weapons. In a speech to war veterans, Mr Bush said: "Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust."

He went on to condemn Iranian meddling in Iraq, where America increasingly blames the deaths of its soldiers on Iranian bombs and missiles. Mr Bush made clear that he had authorised military commanders to confront "Iran's murderous activities".

Chomsky et al. on Iran (various items)

Noam Chomsky once again shows how utterly ridiculous and vastly hypocritical the administration's argument is vis-à-vis the threat of Iran,

The immediate fear is that by accident or design, Washington's war planners or their Israeli surrogate might decide to escalate their Cold War II into a hot one – in this case a real hot war.

David Peterson on Iran,

The Washington regime continues to lay out its case for war with Iran.

Booman Tribune reports on the reprehensible way in which the Iran war is being "marketed",

Actually (and as many of us know), the entire quote by Andy Card back in September 2002 was “From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.” Well, it is September 1, and the time is just about here for another marketing initiative by the callous destructive forces that don’t really care about what the people of this country, or anyone else for that matter says about the absolutely insane idea to bomb or “take action” against Iran.

Global Research via CASMII examines Dear Leader's latest threats against Iran,

The implications of the IAEA-Iran "understandings" are profound: we are not dealing here with a "rogue state" or a member of the "axis of evil," but with a sovereign nation which correctly asserts its right to nuclear energy technology, in the framework of the IAEA and NPT.

Barrett Rubin follows up on his rollout plan for an attack on Iran

from the Informed Comment Global Affairs blog,

Update to update: At DailyKos, Maccabee, under the title "We're Going to Hit Iran. Big Time" relays a phone conversation with a Marine Liaison Signal Officer on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf:

She told me we are going to attack Iran. She said that all the Air Operation Planning and Asset Tasking are finished. That means that all the targets have been chosen, prioritized, and tasked to specific aircraft, bases, carriers, missile cruisers and so forth.

This on the day that the Financial Times reports that with the departure of Rove and Gonzales, "Cheney will now be unchallenged."

Pat Buchanan on Phase III of Bush's War

Pat Buchanan via Antiwar, read more here.

Last spring, Bush vetoed the congressional deadlines for troop withdrawals, then rubbed Congress' nose in its defeat by demanding and getting $100 billion to support the surge and continue the war.

Before the August recess, Democrats broke again and voted to give Bush the warrantless wiretap authority many among them had said was an unconstitutional and impeachable usurpation of power. They are a broken and frightened lot.

And George W. smells it. He no longer fears the power of Congress, and his rhetoric suggests he is contemptuous of it. He is brimming with self-assurance that he can break any Democratic attempt to impose deadlines for troop withdrawal and force Congress to cough up all the funds he demands.

Confident of victory this fall on the Hill, Bush is now moving into Phase III in his War on Terror: First, Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Iran
read more here...