Something must be up.

War on Iran? How soon will it happen? WHY is there no way to stop it?

In Iraq the US military was complicit in the Feb. 20006 Samarra mosque bombing which brought us the Iraq civil war, our reason for staying in Iraq, and now the US military is tilting toward the Sunnis and arming these former US troop killers (supported by the Saudis) while it tells us that the Iranians are now our real enemy. It’s the Iranians who have kept us from victory! Most of the foreign fighters coming into Iraq are Saudis (like the 9/11 attackers) but hey, Saudi Arabia is our friend. The official line: The Iranians have surged in Iraq. The Iraq ‘government’ is allied with Iran but we can fix that by smacking Iran, which Congress has declared to be our top enemy.

It’s enough to make one nostalgic for the good old days of ‘all Monica all the time’, rather than all war all the time.

I was among a group of bloggers to whom Wesley Clark confirmed over a year ago exactly what Don Bacon has described above, with some possible special forces ops on the ground, the troops inserted and removed by air. He also said that with the US in Iraq in force, Bush & Co. would have to be insane to act on any such plans, but no one should think such meant it wouldn’t happen.

And I agree with NTEL, the goal is perpetual war. That’s what makes Bush and the whole WW IV Republican Party so dangerous; there is no downside for them no matter how disastrous the result of their actions. That such an attack would almost guarantee the Mullahs will be charge of that country for the next 100 years isn’t a problem for Ledeen, or for Gingrich, because the increase in political strength to the forces of nationalism and repression inside Iran can can and will be used as a justification that they were indeed a long-term threat worthy of attack, because look, they are still in charge and now hitting us back in Iraq. That an argument that nutty has worked again and again I lay at the door of our corporate media.

I suspect that what Gingrich will be about in his presentation is to argue that Bush’s way was the wrong way, but the failure wasn’t only his, i.e., he was undone by the ineptitude of the entire government, especially the State Dept, but especially the Federal bureaucracy and then argue that taking on Iran is somehow different from Bush policy.

I also think this rollout is something more than an indication that any kind of decision has been made by Bush about an attack; he wants to do it, especially because it would present his successor with a nightmare in which America’s role in the world will be significantly weakened, and then the entire mess created by Bush in the last eight years becomes the fault of someone else, probably a Democrat, but Bush doesn’t care if it’s a Republican.

What this roll out is all about is the 2008 election, and using Iran as an issue in the same way Rove/Bush used “Iraq” in 2004, to charge again and again that Democrats are weak on issues of “defense” and “homeland” security, don’t get that we’re in an existential struggle for survival. Gingrich is smart enough to realize that Republicans have to find a way to distance themselves from Bush even while they run on exactly the same take on security issues as Bush, and with no more clues about the difference between genuine policy-making and clever propaganda, so it will be interesting to see what he comes up with at his AEI presentation.

Iran is a large country, more than twice the size of Texas, with 65 million people, and is strategically located with over two thousand miles of coastline on the Persian Gulf and on the Arabian and Caspian Seas. An attack on Iran will galvanize the Iranian people and their military.

Iran, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, has formidable defenses, including air defense weapons and many varieties of ship-borne torpedoes, mines and cruise missiles which could put a severe hurt on an attacking force. The advent of inexpensive, easily-employable cruise missiles has evened the military playing field. Remember the 40-by-40 foot hole put in the USS Cole, and the crippling of the Israeli missile boat Hanit by a Hezbollah cruise missile in the Mediterranean Sea. Iran also has fast torpedo boats and three submarines. Imagine missiles with 400-pound warheads striking US ships in the confines of the Gulf, while Iran closes off the Straits of Hormuz to any rescue attempts. Meanwhile they activate their agents and allies in Iraq to attack US forces there.

By the way, do you suppose Ledeen’s book will explain where we are going to get the troops to have a war with Iran? Or will bombing the nuclear facilities every six months or so be enough to turn the Iranians into decent, God-fearing Christians?