Administration Plans for Iran: Propaganda or Threat?

Seymour Hersh has a new piece up at the New Yorker belittling the Bush administration's strategic planning on Iran. Hersh argues that the administration's shifting rationale for a military response to Iran is tactical propaganda designed to gain the upper hand in public opinion. Here's a snippet (via Memeorandum):

In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran....

The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.

The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq.

Hersh spends much of the remainder of his essay questioning the credibility of Iranian support for Shiite terror in Iraq, and he dismisses Iranian influence on the mayhem, suggesting that tribal animosities and sectarian infighting within the Iraqi government are responsible for recent violence and instability.

Those familiar with Hersh's work - he's mounted a decades-long campaign to delegitimize the U.S. military and the use of force - will be rightly skeptical of this article. It's been well known for years that Iran has been supplying some of the most lethal improvised explosives killing U.S. forces in Iraq (see here, here, here, here, and here). Further, Hersh's piece fails to provide sources of evidence or argumentation contrary to his major claims.

Antiwar forces will continue to hammer the administration on foreign policy, and neither a full-scale Iranian incursion into Iraq nor the development of Iranian nuclear capability will derail the left's delegitimization campaign against American counterbalancing on Iran.

Note thought that just last week eight Arab nations warned at a diplomatic conference against Iran's "hegemonistic" designs for the Middle East region. In Israel, moreover, the Jerusalem Post suggested that Iran's belligerence presents a challenge to both Israeli and global security:

If a house is on fire, there is little point in worrying about termites, let only the color of the drapes. Western global priorities are seriously misaligned. While it would be wrong to succumb to the global Islamist threat by ignoring other issues, it is even more wrong to ignore the overarching threat that, if it is not defeated, will prevent free nations from comprehensively advancing any of the other critical items on the global agenda.

By force of necessity, Israel has to place grappling with existential threats at front and center. While the country has done an astounding job of building a thriving democracy despite the continuous Arab war against our existence, our politics has been monopolized by matters of peace and security. All other concerns, from the environment to religious-secular tensions to socioeconomic gaps to battling corruption and reforming the electoral system, have had to be largely set aside by a public and political system that cannot adequately address such "side" issues until our existential dilemma is dealt with.

The existential threat to Israel is, of course, part of the Islamist threat to the West. Ignoring it, in either its local or global forms, will not make it go away. Nor can the international community begin to defeat it in earnest while we are still confused and in denial over the pivotal role the outcome of this struggle will have for all other global priorities.

If there's a silver lining in Hersh's report, it's that Israeli military and political leaders are cool to limited U.S. strikes on Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which is a top option being pushed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Israel remains focused on the full-blown decapitation of Iranian strategic capabilities, Hersh notes. The U.S. should be as well.

Israel and the Syria Raid: Implications for Iran

This week's Newsweek provides some compelling speculation on the implications of last week's secretive raid on Syria, the target of which Israel has claimed was a nuclear development facility. Check it out:

How far will Israel go to keep Iran from getting the bomb? The question gained new urgency this month when Israeli warplanes carried out a mysterious raid deep in Syria and then threw up a nearly impenetrable wall of silence around the operation. Last week opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu chipped away at that wall, saying Israel did in fact attack targets in Syrian territory. His top adviser, Mossad veteran Uzi Arad, told NEWSWEEK: "I do know what happened, and when it comes out it will stun everyone."

Official silence has prompted a broad range of speculation as to what exactly took place. One former U.S. official, who like others quoted in this article declined to be identified discussing sensitive matters, says several months ago Israel presented the Bush administration with reconnaissance images and information from secret agents alleging North Korea had begun to supply nuclear-related material to Syria. Some U.S. intelligence reporting, including electronic signal intercepts, appeared to support the Israeli claims. But other U.S. officials remain skeptical about any nuclear link between Syria and North Korea. One European security source told NEWSWEEK the target might have been a North Korean military shipment to Iran that was transiting Syria. But a European intelligence official said it wasn't certain Israel had struck anything at all.

While the Bush administration appears to have given tacit support to the Syria raid, Israel and the United States are not in lockstep on Iran. For Israel, the next three months may be decisive: either Tehran succumbs to sanctions and stops enriching uranium or it must be dealt with militarily. (Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes only.) "Two thousand seven is the year you determine whether diplomatic efforts will stop Iran," says a well-placed Israeli source, who did not want to be named because he is not authorized to speak for the government. "If by the end of the year that's not working, 2008 becomes the year you take action."

In Washington, on the other hand, the consensus against a strike is firmer than most people realize. The Pentagon worries that another war will break America's already overstretched military, while the intelligence community believes Iran is not yet on the verge of a nuclear breakthrough. The latter assessment is expected to appear in a secret National Intelligence Estimate currently nearing completion, according to three intelligence officials who asked for anonymity when discussing nonpublic material. The report is expected to say Iran will not be able to build a nuclear bomb until at least 2010 and possibly 2015. One explanation for the lag: Iran is having trouble with its centrifuge-enrichment technology, according to U.S. and European officials.

Douglas Frantz of the Los Angeles Times noted in 2004, however, that Iran was moving toward nuclear readiness:

This month, Iran said it was gearing up to produce large amounts of gaseous uranium, which is used in enrichment. The gas, known as uranium hexafluoride, can be fed into slender centrifuges, which spin at high speed to transform the gas into enriched uranium.

Iran has moved much faster than expected in manufacturing and assembling these centrifuges, diplomats said. The rapid progress means a pilot centrifuge plant near Natanz, in central Iran, could soon be equipped with enough machines to begin large-scale enrichment.

Two senior European diplomats said the pilot plant could be expanded from the existing 164 centrifuges to 1,000 within weeks and produce enough material in less than a year to fashion a crude nuclear device.

The exact timing involved in Iran's nuclear preparations is probably less important than the regime's overall intentions. Ahmadinejad has rebuffed the Security Council on the issue of continuing inspections, and the world body has delayed a vote on tougher sanctions until at least November, a move designed to give Mohamed ElBaradei - the chief IAEA inspector - more time to investigate Iranian compliance with international demands for a halt to enrichment activities.

Israel might not wait too long, particularly as more information on the ultimate significance of the Syrian incursion becomes available. As the Newsweek story indicates:

The Jewish state has cause for worry. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vows regularly to destroy the country; former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, considered a moderate, warned in 2001 that Tehran could do away with Israel with just one nuclear bomb. In Tel Aviv last week, former deputy Defense minister Ephraim Sneh concurred. Sneh, a dovish member of Israel's Parliament and a retired brigadier general, took a NEWSWEEK reporter to the observation deck atop the 50-story Azrieli Center. "There is Haifa just over the horizon, Ben-Gurion airport over there, the Defense Ministry down below," he said, to show how small the country is. "You can see in this space the majority of our intellectual, economic, political assets are concentrated. One nuclear bomb is enough to wipe out Israel."

The logistics of an Irsraeli attack on Iran's program are difficult but not prohibitive (see here, for example). One interesting scenario - suggested in the Newsweek report - is that an Israeli preventive attack results in Iran's retaliation, with the possible targeting of American assets, which would likely pull the U.S. into the conflict.

Bush and Iran: Do Whatever It Takes

Today's lead editorial at the Wall Street Journal takes the Bush administration to task for not living up to its public statements on Iran. Here's the introduction:

The traveling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad circus made for great political theater this week, but the comedy shouldn't detract from its brazen underlying message: The Iranian President believes that the world lacks the will to stop Iran from pursuing its nuclear program, and that the U.S. also can't stop his country from killing GIs in Iraq. The question is what President Bush intends to do about this in his remaining 16 months in office.

Over the last five years, Mr. Bush has issued multiple and sundry warnings to Iran. In early 2002, he cautioned Iran that "if they in any way, shape or form try to destabilize the [Afghan] government, the coalition will deal with them, in diplomatic ways initially." In mid-2003, following revelations about the extent of Iran's secret nuclear programs, he insisted the U.S. "will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapon."

In January of this year, as evidence mounted that Iran was supplying sophisticated, armor-penetrating munitions to Shiite militias in Iraq, Mr. Bush was tougher still: "We will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

In February, he added that "I can speak with certainty that the Qods Force, a part of the Iranian government, has provided these sophisticated IEDs that have harmed our troops." And as recently as this month's TV speech on Iraq, the President alerted Americans to the "destructive ambitions of Iran" and warned the mullahs that their efforts to "undermine [Iraq's] government must stop."

Read the whole thing. The editors go on to contrast the administration's "rhetorical record" in talking tough on Iran with its public actions, which so far have not walked the walk. One of the most troubling issues is Iran's killing of American soldiers in Iraq:

Administration officials tell us that Iranian-backed militias using Iranian-supplied arms now account for 70% of U.S. casualties in Iraq.

And here's the conclusion:

The Bush Presidency is running out of time to act if it wants to stop Iran from gaining a bomb. With GIs fighting and dying in Iraq, Mr. Bush also owes it to them not to allow enemy sanctuaries or weapons pipelines from Iran. If the President believes half of what he and his Administration have said about Iran's behavior, he has an obligation to do whatever it takes to stop it.

As readers here will recall, I've noted on many occasions the futility of U.N. sanctions in deterring Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. Ahmadinejad announced Tuesday that Iran's nuclear weapons programs was a "closed issue" and that Tehran would ignore U.N. Security Council demands for the termination of its nuclear development efforts.

The administration should delay no longer. We indeed must to do whatever it takes to avoid an international crisis, even if this entails preventive strikes against Iran's nuclear development facilities.

The Case Against Ahmadinejad at Columbia

While monitoring the continuing controversy over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York, be sure to read Caroline Glick's phenomenal essay outlining the moral case against the Iranian president's speech at Columbia.

Glick lists all of Iran's outragreous actions and statements, on the Holocaust and Israel, on human rights, on regional security, and so on. These actions - which represent Iran as the true international pariah that it is - make a clear justification for denying Ahmadinejad a platform. But Glick's objections go further, to an even more fundamental ethical issue in the controversy:

THE PROBLEM with Columbia's action, the reason that there can be no moral justification for the university's decision, is because by inviting Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia has made the pros and cons of genocide a legitimate subject for debate. By asking Ahmadinejad challenging questions, Bollinger has reduced the right of the Jewish people to live to a question of preferences.

No doubt, Bollinger prefers to see the Jewish people remain alive. But this is beside the point. The point is that by debating the issue with Ahmadinejad, Bollinger just put the right of the Jewish people to exist on the table.

Here it is important to note Ahmadinejad's uniqueness. It is true that in supporting the annihilation of Israel, Ahmadinejad is no different from his terrorist underlings Hassan Nasrallah, Khaled Mashaal and Farouk Kaddoumi. Moreover, Ahmadinejad's desire to wipe the largest concentration of Jews on earth off the map simply because it is Jewish is shared by all of his colleagues in the Iranian regime and most intellectuals and religious leaders in the Arab world.

But still there is a difference between Ahmadinejad and all the others. Through his words and his deeds, Ahmadinejad has become the symbol and the leader of the growing international movement which supports and engages in activities to advance the destruction of the Jewish people. Through his words and his deeds, Ahmadinejad has become the poster boy for genocide.

As a result, what was said yesterday at Columbia is of no consequence whatsoever. What matters is that by inviting Ahmadinejad to its campus, Columbia University announced that supporting or opposing the genocide of the Jews is a legitimate topic for discussion. In so doing, as an institution Columbia has taken itself beyond the pale of legitimate discourse. As an institution, Columbia has embraced depravity by renouncing the intrinsic sanctity of human life.

Glick argues finally for the resignation of Columbia's Lee Bollinger, for campus alumni to end their financial support of the university, and she urges students to rise up in a campaign of moral indignation against this depravity.

This is a powerful essay - indeed, one of the most penetrating analyses on moral right I've ever read.

I still can't help thinking that there remains a free speech issue here in that no matter how despicable an idea, airing a view makes the idea compete in the marketplace of ideas and values. As any truth-thinking person knows, the existential essence of the Jewish people - the fundamental matter of Jewish life - is not a matter for debate. Thus, for the world to hear Ahmadinejad once again state his views - that the Holocaust "needs more research" - the West will be able to continue to build the case it needs to topple the Iranian regime, which kills Americans in Iraq, supports the annihilation of Israel, continues apace in its nuclear development program, and massacres in citizens in a brutal campaign of massive human rights violations.

There's no redeeming value in what Ahmadinejad spouts, but his words are on record in the international court of public opinion. I'm convinced that we'll hear and see more of Iran's evil deeds, all the more evidence justifying preventive strikes on the state's nuclear program, and ultimately the decapitation of the regime.

Ahmadinejad Calls for More Research on Holocaust

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered his highly contested speech at Columbia University today, where he renewed his controversial statements about the Holocaust. The Washington Post has the details:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was greeted with student protests and withering public criticism during a visit to Columbia University Monday in which he defended his government's human rights record, denounced Israel and rejected U.S. efforts to restrict Iran's nuclear program.

Speaking to students and faculty at Columbia a day ahead of his scheduled address to the United Nations General Assembly, the hard-line Iranian president also asserted that his people, including women, "enjoy the highest levels of freedom," and he claimed that homosexuality does not exist in his country.

Before his speech, he came under unusually harsh criticism from Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, who condemned what he said was the Ahmadinejad government's expanding crackdown on dissent, its persecution of the B'hai religious minority and homosexuals, its support for the destruction of Israel and its pursuit of a "proxy war" against U.S. forces in Iraq.

"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad from a podium across the stage. He said the Iranian's denial of the Holocaust might fool "the illiterate and ignorant," but that "when you come to a place like this, it makes you quite simply ridiculous." Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust suggested he was either "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Bollinger said.

The university president's caustic comments were met with cheers and sustained applause from the roughly 700 people in the audience, most of them students.

Ahmadinejad called the introductory speech insulting and said Bollinger was misinformed. But he went on to repeat his assertions that the Holocaust should be researched "from different perspectives," and he denounced the punishment in Europe of "a number of academics" who were "questioning certain aspects of it." He also said Palestinians should not be "paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with."

The New York Times quotes Ahmadinejad as saying there is insufficient research on the truth of Nazi Germany and the Jews:

He said that as an academic he questioned whether there was “sufficient research” about what happened after World War II, referring to the Holocaust.

I'm going to read the full transcript of the Ahmadinejad speech later, but from what I see in early reports, his statements confirm the argument I made yesterday. As witnessed today, Ahmadinejad has reaffirmed Iran's denial of the Holocaust, and his speech continues the Iranian regime's campaign to weaken the legitimacy of the Israeli state.

As the Los Angeles Times reported today, Ahmadinejad's resistance to Israel and the United States has built the Iranian regime a growing following among Arabs in countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia:

...Ahmadinejad's intense distrust of the U.S. and hatred of Israel have elevated him to mythical status for the frustrated Arab mechanic, taxi driver or lawyer seeking a pure, forceful message.

The Times article notes further that Arab public opinion holds Iran up with Hezbollah and Hamas as a glorious Middle East underdog, battling larger, insidious Western forces. It's clear among large segments of the Arab street that Iran's well-suited - with its aggressive intentions and growing nuclear capability - to lead a revisionist challenge to Middle East regional order.

Much of the blogosphere is up in arms over Columbia's decision to sponsor an Ahmadinejad lecture. The anger is fully understandable, but in the long run I think the Iranian president's words will provide additional support for a firm stand against Iran's drive to weaken international security.

Further, the left blogosphere's noxious defense of Iran - not to mention the left's continued statements of moral equivalency between Bush administration and the Iranian regime - will further discredit the radical political agenda and ideology in current debates over U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Focus on the Iranian Threat

The outrage at Columbia University's speaking invitation to Iran's President Ahmedinejad is fully understandable (see here, here and here).

There may be strong grounds for denying the Iranian leader a platform to spew his vile hatred of the West. Yet, Ahmadinejad - for all his derangement - is a major international player, and the world community has an interest in hearing what he has to say, especially at the United Nations, and even at Columbia (whose administration just doesn't get it).

Folks should not lose sight of the big picture, though. The Oxford Medievalist reminds us of the nature of the Iranian challenge:

Mahmoud is an apocalyptic madman Jew-hating president of a regime bent on spreading its Islamist revolution throughout the Middle East and, eventually, the world.

I'm reminded of Iran's revolutionary aspirations by today's Los Angeles Times, which reports on this weekend's military parade in Tehran, a show of force coinciding with Ahmadinejad's visit to New York:

Iran showed off its armaments Saturday at annual army celebrations meant to highlight the oil-rich nation's military self-sufficiency and prowess in the face of international sanctions and U.S. hostility.

Iranian-made Saegheh fighter jets, which some military experts say are based on U.S. F-18s, screeched across the sky over Iranian-made armored personnel carriers and Ghadr missiles, which have a range of more than 1,000 miles.

"All these arms and equipment have been manufactured in Iran by Iranian experts," an announcer declared on state-controlled television.

Military commanders and political officials assembled for the military parade near the tomb of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said they were undeterred by the possibility of U.S. or Israeli military attacks or increased economic pressure on Iran. The Islamic Republic is at odds with the West over its ambitions to acquire advanced nuclear technology and its alleged support for armed Islamic groups.

"Those who believe that through rotten means, such as psychological warfare and economic sanctions, they could hinder progress of the Iranian nation are wrong," said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is scheduled to arrive in New York today and to address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

Iran and the U.S. are engaged in a struggle over influence in the Middle East. Tehran accuses Washington of destabilizing the region by backing Israel and occupying Iraq. The U.S. accuses the Islamic Republic of pursuing nuclear weapons and supporting anti-American militants in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

The Times piece notes that American officials have not ruled out military action to eliminate Iran's threat to regional and global security, and in that lies the significance of the Ahmadinejad visit.

Allowing the Iranian leader to denounce the U.S., Israel, and the West will likely bolster the case against Iran's peaceful intentions. One of the best lessons emerging out of the recent MoveOn scandal is that free speech has the powerful value of exposing despicable views to popular repudiation. In the case of Iran, the sanctions regime against Iranian nuclear development has proved ineffectual. While the U.S. delays a decisive showdown, Iran continues its bid for regional domination, and its ultimate campaign for the destruction of Israel.

Let America and the world hear what Ahmadinejad has to say this week in New York. All the while, no one should take their eyes off the big picture - a military showdown is coming, and we have a compelling interest in hearing the continued dissemination of Ahmadinejad's propaganda and warmongering. His rants will bolster the already compelling case for a preventive war to remove the Iranian threat.

Iran is Defiant

The New York Times reports that the Iranian regime has ratcheted up its defiant stance against Western demands for the abandonment of its nuclear weapons enrichment program:

Iran’s leaders issued dual, defiant statements on Sunday, with the president announcing that the nation had 3,000 active centrifuges to enrich uranium and the top ayatollah appointing a new Islamic Revolutionary Guards commander who once advocated military force against students.

The pairing of the messages, just days after the United Nations’ top nuclear official said Iran was striking conciliatory poses, appeared intended to reaffirm the country’s refusal to back down to pressure from the United States over its nuclear program and its role in Iraq, political analysts in Iran said. And it came as the Bush administration was celebrating progress in its talks with North Korea to shut down that country’s nuclear programs.

Indeed, the timing and tone of Iran’s declarations may be more politically significant than their content, particularly in the case of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement that Iran had finally reached its stated goal of developing 3,000 centrifuges.

Many technical experts have expressed skepticism over Iran’s periodic claims of enrichment breakthroughs, saying the assertions often turn out to be exaggerated.

That seemed to be the case again on Sunday, though nuclear experts said that even if Mr. Ahmadinejad was overreaching, it would be only a matter of time before the boast became true. The most recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, released Thursday, said Iran had 1,968 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main Natanz plant, 328 in testing, and 328 in assembly — for a total of 2,624. The report noted that the assessment was accurate as of Aug. 19, or two weeks ago.

The goal of 3,000 centrifuges is significant to nuclear experts: they say that if Iran could spin that many centrifuges nonstop for a year, it could make enough highly enriched uranium for a single atom bomb.

But Mohamed ElBaradei, the atomic energy agency director general, said in an interview last week that Iran seemed to be intentionally slowing its progress in an effort to strike a conciliatory note as the United Nations Security Council demanded it stop the nuclear work completely. “My gut feeling,” he said, “is that it’s primarily for political reasons.”

Still, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s new claim was a direct challenge to that notion, and to efforts by the United States and European countries to impose harsher sanctions against Iran. “The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new cascade every week,” state television quoted the president as saying.

The White House warned that a new round of sanctions was likely in the wake of Iran’s refusal to cooperate. “This kind of announcement is inconsistent with Iran’s recent comments on cooperation with the I.A.E.A.,” said a spokesman, Robert W. Saliterman.

Read the rest. It's extremely interesting that Iran finds its self-interest in intensifying its rejection of international demands at this time.

There has, of late, been a steady drumbeat of increasingly belligerent statements among the world's great powers. So it seems counterintuitive for Tehran to test international resolve now, just as the West's patience is wearing thin.

I'll be interested to see how radical bloggers spin this story, if they address it all. As I've noted in recent entries, there's an increasing effort among the most fanatical Bush-bashers to demonize the adminstration as hellbent on war (see here and here, for example).

For more, see Michael Van Der Galien, who notes the heightening shrillness to the Bush-demonization project among pro-Iran bloggers.

The Coming "Bush/Cheney" War Against Iran?

A news report today indicates that the international community has become increasingly frustrated in its efforts to reduce Tehran's support for terrorist violence in Iraq; and that the International Atomic Energy Agency plans to announce the end of its four-year program of inspections in Iran, which has been marked by the government's growing rejection of intrusive review of the country's nuclear development facilities.

At the same time, French President Nicholas Sarkozy yesterday blasted Tehran for its nuclear ambitions, and warned that preventive strikes may be warranted in the face of continued Iranian recalcitrance.

As well, President Bush has warned against the specter of a "nuclear holocaust" should Tehran's authoritarian state develop devastating nuclear capabilities.

This concerted international drumbeat of counter-Iranian diplomacy might be considered a substantial measure of the West's stiffening resolve against Tehran's aggressive designs.

Of course, not everyone would agree with such an interpretation, particularly those on the hard left, who continue to demonize the Bush administration for its alleged fear-mongering and bellicosity.

For example, check out this entry from FireDogLake, which denounces the "Bush/Cheney" regime's rush to war:

Now Bush has described the Iranian regime as posing the threat of a “nuclear holocaust.” Not just a “mushroom cloud.” This time, it’s a nuclear holocaust — terms reserved for the most heinous of crimes and the most despicable of enemies. No sane government engages in such inflammatory rhetoric. But where is the dissent? Where is the outcry?

Throughout this inexorable march to war, the Democratic Congress has done worse than nothing. They’ve voted for resolutions condemning Iran without having the factual basis for knowing what Iran is doing or intends, relying only on neocon and Administration propaganda. They’d listened to dishonest and crazed warmongers like Joe Lieberman, for heaven’s sake. They’ve voted for resolutions that would support regime change, but they’ve refused to pass resolutions or amendments that would require the Administration to seek new authorization to start a war with Iran. Most of our Democratic Presidential candidates — Kucinich and Gravel excepted — have pretended to be “serious” people by refusing to rule out military strikes against Iran, even nuclear strikes. These are not serious positions; they are seriously irresponsible.

But of course, this Administration does not need authorization. It it now operating completely outside the law, outside the Constitution, outside any checks by Congress or influence from those who might counsel against war. By Presidential fiat, it has declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist group, effectively making them an enemy of the US without any Congressional declaration of war. We have a lawless, reckless and belligerent Administration, and it is about to start another unlawful war, even as it tries to convince the American people that it is a good thing that the regime has 160,000 US troops bogged down in another quagmire, vulnerable to an enlarged regional war. Who will tell this crazed regime to stop? To whom would it even listen?

The Administration has repeatedly told us Iran is responsible for many of the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq. They trot out their propagandists in Iraq to shows us the weapons and their markings, suggesting that their use in Iraq is a delberate policy of the Iranian government. Their neocon supporters are already spreading the theme that Iran has effectively declared war on the US by arming and training those who are killing our soldiers in Iraq.

The only thing the Bush/Cheney regime needs is the money to wage its aggressive war against Iran, but how they’ll get it is patently obvious. That money is embedded in the authorizations for supporting US troops and their activities in Iraq. Congress no longer asks what the money is for: it’s assumed to be for “supporting the troops.” Now the regime is asking for another supplemental authorization — another $50 billion — and while Democrats are promising a fight, some are already announcing they will “support the troops” by giving the Administration all the money it requests.

Wake up Democrats: you are being asked to fund an aggressive war against Iran. This war will be on your heads. Stop.

I see an ever-deepening sense of irrational desperation among the hard-line forces of the left. It's almost as if the radical cadres have indicted as imperialists and war criminals all the nations of the Western international order.

And notice the conspiratorial tone of the post: The "unlawful" Bush/Cheney "regime" now operates completely "outside the law." War rumblings are foisted by the "neocons" and the administration's "propagandists." Undue influence is detected among "dishonest and crazed warmongers" such as centrist Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.

But of course those over at FireDog have the gumption to attack the Democrats for budgeting funds for this "aggressive war against Iran," while at the same time begging the party to "wake up" to the administration's imperialistic project.

It's really too much!

I've noted before that some mainstream policy analysts have suggested that the military option cannot be ruled out, and indeed some have said preventive strikes might be the last, best alternative for decapitating the Iranian nuclear development program.

But hey, a little hard-headed policy analysis is not going to get in the way of a good leftist smear campaign against the Bush/Cheney warmongers in Washington.