DETROIT -- Like the boys from Delta House in the film classic "Animal House," President George W. Bush is planning a "road trip" to boost morale and attempt to salvage a sense of achievement for his unraveling presidency.
The Delta's zany road antics brought them renewed confidence and a diversion from their troubles. Bush is plotting an excursion with similar motives, as his administration flounders and he tries to pull off something big to polish his legacy and fulfill the noble mission God entrusted him with during one of their frequent chats.
Bush, led by his "big brother," Vice President Dick Cheney, is ready to send the U.S. military on a trip to Iran to mount an attack that is sure to be a disaster beyond even the quagmire in Iraq.
An assault on Iran will divert, at least for a time, public attention from the failure in Iraq and will be sold, in part, as necessary to protect U.S. forces there. That pretext will be fused with Bush's obsession to bully Iran into submission by destroying its nuclear facilities.
It is written in neoconservative scripture that only the United States and Israel are to have nuclear capabilities in the Middle East and American military supremacy in the region cannot be challenged.
Spreading democracy, preserving civilization, protecting oil and Israel are also neocon doctrines. Occupying Iraq and bombing Iran are simply necessary moves to serve those noble goals.
Bush's arguments and push for war with Iran are getting more shrill and inflamed. Speaking at the American Legion annual convention last week, another favorite forum for Bush's most strident rhetoric, he raised the specter of a "nuclear holocaust" in the Middle East, linking his Iraq policies with containing Iran.
The decisive "commander guy" told the military veterans that we must stay the course because of "what would happen if these forces of radicalism are allowed to drive us out of the Middle East."
As the Legionnaires cheered wildly, Bush bellowed, "The region would be dramatically transformed in a way that would imperil the civilized world."
Perhaps it didn't occur to Bush and his mindless cheerleaders that the invasion and occupation of Iraq already "imperil the civilized world." Attacking Iran will add to the peril.
Just as Bush conflated Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks Ñ with the mainstream media's complicity Ñ he is now wrapping Iran with the insurgency in Iraq and blaming Tehran for all that ails Baghdad.
If you don't support my war plans in Iraq, Bush is suggesting, you are supporting Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his nation's designs in the region, a variation on the theme of "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists."
Bush's shifting rationales for invading Iraq and remaining there indefinitely have evolved into this contorted view he shared with the American Legion: "The most important and immediate way to counter the ambitions of al-Qaeda and Iran and the other forces of instability and terror is to win the fight in Iraq."
The U.S. invasion of Iraq brought instability and radically upset counter-balancing forces in the region, especially strengthening Iran, a consequence the down-with-Saddam and regime-change chorus simply chose to ignore in the march to "Mission Accomplished."
Iran is a reality and regional power that cannot be ignored. A casual glance at a map makes the point. For all his delusions (not unlike Bush's), Ahmadinejad does grasp some realities.
On the same day as Bush's hideous performance at the American Legion convention, Ahmadinejad warned, "You ( the United States) cannot preserve your power over Iraq with a few tanks, artillery and weapons. Today, you are prisoners of your own quagmire. You have no choice but to accept the rights of the Iraqi people."
Bush is seething over the increasingly warm relationship between Iran and Iraq. That development is a direct result of the U.S. occupation, as well as geopolitics and religious allegiances fostering the alliance.
Ahmadinejad added, "I can tell you there will be a power vacuum in the region. We are ready with other regional countries, such as Saudi Arabia, and the people of Iraq to fill this vacuum."
Bush considers those fighting words. He rejected the advice of the Iraq Study Group that engaging Iran and other powers in the region would help stabilize Iraq. The unilateral way or the highway is this administration's only strategy.
Iran is enriching uranium that can be used for energy as well as nuclear weapons, although many U.S. intelligence experts believe nukes are at least 10 years away. Iran's quest to join the nuclear club is regrettable, but understandable as well as practical from their perspective.
Author Dave Lindorff wrote on the Smirking Chimp Web site about the madness of the U.S.-planned attack on Iran and the dire consequences. "Cleary, the motive for Iran obtaining the bomb then is defensive," Lindorff argues.
"Iran is confronted by Israel, which does have a considerable number of nuclear bombs, and the means of delivering them to Iran. This is a real threat to Iran, and just as the U.S. and Russia developed a program of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) to prevent nuclear holocaust, just as India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, have developed a program of MAD, so Iran wants to protect itself from a nuclear Israel by establishing a condition of MAD. The U.S. only adds to the pressure on Iran's leadership to get themselves into the nuclear club by repeating its bellicose threats to attack that county," Lindorff writes.
We are supposed to forget the fact that beginning in the 1960s, the United States supported the Shah of Iran's development of nuclear reactors, even providing him with a research model. The Shah was "our dictator," installed in a CIA-orchestrated coup.
Lindorff notes the Shah was developing an aggressive nuclear weapons program that was viewed as no threat whatsoever to the civilized world. In 1979, the Islamic Revolution in Iran inherited what was widely known as "the most advanced nuclear program in the Middle East," developed with the blessings and support of the U.S. government.
An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report finds Iran's nuclear enrichment program is operating well below capacity and, according to a Reuters report, "is far from producing nuclear fuel in significant amounts."
Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the IAEA, says Iran is showing unusual cooperation in providing information about its nuclear operations and intentions in the face of United Nations Security Council sanctions.
"This is the first time Iran is ready to discuss all the outstanding issues which triggered the crisis of confidence," ElBaradei told The New York Times. "It's a significant step."
The Bush administration quickly pooh-poohed the report, with State Department spokesman Tom Casey offering the threadbare line that "Iran has refused to comply with its international obligations."
The Busheviks despise ElBaradei, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for his work in the international control of nuclear weapons. In March 2003, two weeks before the invasion of Iraq, ElBaradei truthfully reported Saddam was cooperating with UN weapons inspectors and they had found no evidence that Iraq had restarted a nuclear program, a lie Bush and Cheney peddled to sell their war. Now the same class of lies is being used to push war with Iran.
Bush and his Republican allies are taking their lumps these days. Sen. Larry "Wide Stance" Craig, R-Idaho, is resigning after playing footsie with an undercover police officer in an airport bathroom stall. Craig joins a pantheon of pathetic Republicans who condemn and persecute gays to please their base, while privately engaging in practices most people of all sexual preferences find base and offensive.
Alberto Gonzales, the worst attorney general in American history (and that includes a couple who went to prison), quit as the department's inspector general launches an investigation into Gonzales' suspected perjured testimony before Congress. Gonzales didn't resign, he just "had no recollection" or "could nor recall" that he was the attorney general.
Even Bush's most popular confidante, his cozy Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is getting shunned as rumors surfaced that she might be eyeing a return to Stanford University, where she's been on a leave of absence as provost since signing on as a war criminal in Washington.
One faculty member, The New York Times reports, wrote the student paper, the Stanford Daily, "Condoleezza Rice serves an administration that has thrashed the basic values of academia: reason, science, expertise, honesty. Stanford University should not welcome her back."
Bush is a frat boy at heart and in spirit. He knows he and pals, like Condi Rice, are in trouble with the world. The remedy? A road trip to Iran to show the Busheviks, like the Deltas, are alive. The result will be more deaths and another Bush foreign policy disaster. Get ready.
Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Sept. 4 2007 |