Recently in Iran Category

Rasmussen Reports

Forty-two percent (42%) of Americans say that if Israel launches an attack against Iran, the United States should help Israel. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 46% believe the United States should do nothing while just 1% believe the U.S. should help Iran.

I have a feeling, based on nothing more than my own silly notions, that the one-percent is made up of half ethnic Iranians and the other half are people that have actually read and understand our international obligations under the UN Charter to come to the aid of member nations who are victims of an otherwise unprovoked attacked by a rogue nation acting outside of the the rule of law.

I'm not saying what we should do, although even if we just stand by and watch Israel do everybody else's dirty work when it comes to Iran's nuclear aspirational goals, it's certain that we could be counted on to veto any interference by the UN against our closest Middle Eastern ally.

However, it's interesting that less than one percent of Americans even care what the UN obligates us to do.

Some time ago I made the mistake of signing up for the Wingnut newsletter from Human Events, mainly to keep track of what crap Ann Coultergeist was spewing and to document the fall of her book prices to a buck.  Long since relegated to my junk mail spam filters, I checked it out today and saw Pat Buchanan's latest column being promoted.

There's always been something peculiar about dear old Pat's xenophobic world-view, and when he's doing his thing live as a regular at MSNBC, he can appear quite rational, albeit bellicose if you're not paying attention.  But in print, he's really something to behold.

Today, Buchanan makes the case that Britain and Poland were responsible for the horrors of World War II and the Soviet gulags.  No really:

On March 31, 1939, Britain gave a blank check to Poland in its dispute with Germany over Danzig, a town of 350,000 Germans. Should war come, Britain would fight on Poland's side.

Poland refused to negotiate, Adolf Hitler attacked, and Britain declared war. After six years, the British Empire collapsed. Germany was burnt to ashes. Poland entered the slave quarters of Joseph Stalin's empire.

Really Pat?  Are you really blaming Poland for WWII?

Pat's trying to make the case that we've given a similar "blank check" to Israel!  His proof?  They blew up a suspected nuclear facility in Syria last year and practiced come military exercises that could be interpreted as a dry run on Iran's nuke sites.  From this he concludes in a feat of illogical paranoia only the truly self-absorbed could manage that we would defend Israel from becoming a victim of a war they started themselves with or without our approval.

I know . . . crazy.  The problem is, that pretty close to reality.

Pat's worried that Israel might suck us into a war we don't want with Iran and that they need to be told not to start something we would have to finish.  Leave alone the fact that we don't have a mutual defense pact with Israel like the one that sucked Germany into Austria's war on Serbia which precipitated WW One, or made the specific commitments Britain gave Poland just prior to the beginning to WWII -- given as a deterrent that unfortunately failed.  The only recent US official who said an attack on Israel would be met with a devastating US response was candidate Hillary Clinton, and what Pat's considering is just the reverse, an attack by Israel on Iran just like the one's it made on Syria last year and Iraq over a decade ago.

And of course Buchanan presumes that unlike the previous surgical strikes that did not bring about a regional conflagration, this one would.

Sure, no doubt the white House green lighted Israel's moves against its neighbors in those prior incidents, and presumably would do so again.  And whether or not we approve of a move by Israel on Iran in the future, if they do it we'll be blamed.  That, and everybody knows Clinton was stating highly UN-official policy, yet accurately nonetheless.

So my question to Pat is, what frickin' difference would it make if we publicly told the Israelis "in unequivocal terms that the United States opposes any Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran, and will not assist but denounce any such
attack."  They  don't necessarily have to listen to us, and we might be saying something completely different in private -- and no one will believe us anyway if the shit hits the fan.  Besides, we already set the precedent for "preventive" war when we conquered Iraq.

Geez, half the administration is Jonesin' for another fight before they're thrown out of Washington.  Cheney and his minions make it clear they want to attack Iran sooner rather than later.  Oliver North on Fox Noise made the case it would be a cake-walk, that an attack on Iran would be welcomed by their Sunni neighbors in Jordon, Saudi Arabia and throughout the region -- and not turn it into an erupting nightmare.  North didn't even mention they would automatically close the Straights of Hormuz before the first plane returned to base, sending gas upwards of $20.00 a gallon in a day.   Just another walk on the beach, that's what the neo-con propaganda machine wants you to believe.

Remember "bomb, bomb, bomb" McCain?  He's cracking more so-called jokes about killing all the Iranians with cigarettes ... idiot. 

Of course we would be blamed, and of course we would have to act.  Who on earth would believe for one minute that if Israel started a fight with Iran it wasn't a joint effort whether we were in cahoots or not.  And would it matter?  If the Persian Gulf spigot were shut down, we'd be going to war anyway, no matter who provoked the conflict. 

It's not that we gave Israel any sort of "blank check" to hold our foreign policy captive.  It's that our entire world's economy is so tied up in the free flow of that black sludge, we would have no choice but to get involved.  As much as we love our Israeli friends, our ridiculously huge military exists to protect the American way of life, and that means being able to count on filling up the family wagon without taking our a second mortgage.

We're not hostage to Israel.  We're hostage to light sweet crude.

Jon Stewart compares and contrasts the reception our president gets when visiting Iraq...and the reception recently received by Iranian President Ahmedenijad.

"Hey Iraq: After we built you an entire Green Zone....It would be nice, when our sworn enemy visits your country, that you give him a slightly tougher reception than the one he got when he visited Columbia University."

[cross posted, with a poll, at Daily Kos]

As if the world, and our place in it, wasn't volatile enough, here comes the latest update on what's happening in Russia.

From David Remnick, who was the Moscow correspondent for the WashPo and also Pulitzer Prize winning author (Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire):

We should pay attention to what's going on in Russia for any number of reasons. First of all it's a gigantic country, with a gigantic land mass, with nuclear weapons, with enormous economic resources [an oil price nearing $100 a barrel and the high price of natural gas], its importance in geopolitical terms is fantastic — it borders on Iran and Central Asia, it borders Europe — it couldn't be more important. But our eye has been off the ball essentially for quite a long time (a) because the Cold War ended and (b) because we've been so obsessed, for obvious reasons, on South Asia and the Middle East.

Check. But how bad could it be? After all, Bush assured us that he "looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy...I was able to get a sense of his soul." We can do business with him, right?

One of Putin's great tools as a leader... is a sense of mystery. We're now in late November. and we still don't know anything about the shape of the ballot for December parliamentary elections, and we have no idea if anybody will be on the ballot against a either Putin or a Putin-handpicked candidate come March. Just have no idea...

These aren't elections and they don't bear close inspection — whether there are monitors or no monitors — they don't bear close inspection as democratic elections.

So you're saying that Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan are all peanuts compared to Russia? What exactly do you suggest we do about this?

As Americans, [in] Bush's America, we are not going to be very effective advocates, certainly not in Russia, in an era of declining American moral authority, which is one of the most unfortunate consequences of the Bush presidency...

So it is extremely easy and effective for Vladimir Putin to say, "Look, United States, don't lecture me on democracy — look at Abu Ghraib, look at Guantanamo, look at many other things" — and he can say that, by the way, with great effectiveness.

Well, OK, but we can still work with him, right? He'd cooperate with us on the war on terror, right?

Mr Putin [has] emphasised the need for all Caspian nations to prohibit the use of their territory by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region - a clear reference to long-standing rumours that the US might be planning to use Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic, as a staging ground for any possible military action against Iran.

Bottom line: at best, all top-tier presidential candidates are going to have to address Russia's place in US foreign policy plans post-Bush. At worst? A pre-election war against Iran -- indirectly involving Russia.

I picked a hell of a day to quit sniffing glue.

Shorter Podhoretz: "We ignored Hitler and look what happened."
Shorter Zakaria: "We contained Mao and look what happened."

Cunning Realist:

Make no mistake: the administration is now in damn-the-torpedoes mode on the economy and financial markets. The housing market must not be in the headlines a year from now. The stock market must be at or near its highs when the administration leaves office so capital gains can be realized at good prices before a Democratic president raises taxes, and so apologists can point to the Dow and claim for the next few generations that Bush's fiscal policy "worked."

The solution? Blame it on Iran!

Do you think this particular administration will sit by idly if oil goes to $100, then $110, then $120 -- and a gallon of gas hits $4 in some areas during next summer's driving season, just a few months before the election? "Unrest in Nigeria" and "refinery problems in Texas" (and lately "Turkey-Kurd tensions") have limited shelf life as excuses. Statists hate pressure, but they fear consequences -- particularly when the culpability is both obvious and unavoidable.

This is why keeping Iran as an ever-ready trump card is so important. If those consequences get bad enough and no excuse will do, the use of force must be at least minimally plausible to the public and the rest of the world. In the meantime, the tension -- preferably continuous and drawn-out -- created by the mere possibility of a military strike is useful as an ongoing excuse for the spiraling price of oil...

Don't say we weren't warned. You know it's coming.

[Cross posted, with poll, at Daily Kos]

Yaakov Kirschen's cartoon goes like this: "The optimists think that the US Presidential campaign will be about the war in Iraq, while the pessimists think it'll be about the war in Iran." Substitute "Democrats" for "optimists" and "Republicans" for "pessimists" and I think you have a prescription for Democratic electoral disaster.

Hear me out...

Flash forward 6-12 months: tensions are high with Iran; maybe we've had some cross border skirmishes (like the Turks vs. the PKK). Maybe we've concentrated more ships, planes and bombs into the Gulf region. I'm not a betting man but the odds seem pretty strong we'll see that, or worse, in the immediate future. Who's going to stop it? Congress? Riiiiiiight. This is the same bunch that couldn't even compel Harriet Miers to comply with a crappy subpoena.

So now tensions are high. Very high. We're talking 24/7 war mania. Of course, the media is no help. In fact, Murdoch's new WSJ business channel bangs the drums louder than anyone -- whatever is good for the corporation is good for America. Blackwater stock goes stratospheric.

Who do you think this help the most -- Democrats or Republicans? Or more to the point: which candidates does this help most? Don't shoot the messenger, but I'm here to tell you it's short list -- and it has more Republicans on it than Democrats:

• Giuliani -- Death to Islamofascism. No more 9/11's.
  
• McCain -- The son and grandson of Navy admirals, blah blah blah.
  
• Clinton -- Stood (and will stand) shoulder-to-shoulder with the Commander in Chief

The rest of the field are (rightly or wrongly) perceived as lightweights. Not only that: the press will cast the story that way as well. Romney? Edwards? They cancel each other out as pretty boys. Obama bet on Iraq (being the optimist, see above, that he is) but he has no cred on Iran. Thompson? Compared to McCain and Giuliani, he's about exciting as a plate of grits. Dodd & Biden? I'd like to think they could stop Bush/Cheney via the Senate but I'm not counting on it. Richardson? His strength is his weakness -- he's a diplomat.

For those of you who were electoral optimists (see above) this is not good, my friends: McCain and Giuliani already poll relatively well against Clinton. A looming war with Iran helps them more than it helps her. Whichever one of them gets the nomination, all bets are off for an easy Dem takeover in the White House.

One bit of good news: I think Hillary Clinton intuitively sees these pieces on the chess board and is thinking several moves ahead. The others either don't -- or can't -- deal with it as it stands now.

Am I missing something here? I don't think so.

Bottom line: the worse the situation with Iran, the better it is for the Republicans in November 2008.

Future historians will point to September 26, 2007 as the day the US-Iran war started:

By a vote 76-22, the Senate passed the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, which threatens to “combat, contain and [stop]” Iran via “military instruments.”

[Full marked-up version of the amendment here.]

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) called the amendment “Cheney’s fondest pipe dream” and said it could “read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action.”

Batten down the hatches. If Democrats thought they had a clear shot at the White House, they've got another thing coming.

UPDATE: Here's what World War III may look like.

by shep

First off, congratulations to the now released British sailors and the British government for not starting World War The End of Civilization As We Know It.

Obviously, had it been up to some of your seasoned veterans and commentators, not to mention some of your neocon friends across the pond, we might all be beating, stabbing and shooting each other to get one last fill-up for the trip to Armageddon.

Something occurred to me as I was watching some video of the Brits as they were being held, reading statements, having tea, etc., that probably wouldn't occur to the Grizzled Generation or even our baby-boomer, neocon, tele-warriors. (First off, the Brits and Iranians were not at war, but that’s not what I’m talking about.)

In Great War II, Korea, and even Vietnam, if a captive were confronted with a camera, that would seem like a fairly dramatic development. We were still using something called fillum back then, and fillum cameras were bulky and not all that commonplace. Being questioned while someone pointed a camera at you would at least make one a bit suspicious (especially if you were at war with them).

Today’s military-age kids (I think being twice their age gives me some license here) were raised on camera phones, palm-sized high-resolution video cameras, web cams, and the inter (and You) tubes. Being “on-camera” for these kids is like wearing pants.

Finally, the world has shrunk considerably since The Good Ole Days and today’s twenty something’s, especially Europeans, are considerably less xenophobic than many of their forebears. Even as captives, suffering some hostility and mistreatment from the Iranians, they might be less likely to be suspicious, unforgiving or hate-filled toward their captors (did I mention that they were not at war?). Thank God.

So, go fill-‘er-up and have a Happy Easter (and don’t forget the videocam).

I [heart] John Rogers:

Please remember -- when you bomb people for their own good, they rarely take the point in the way you hoped. Empathy is our friend. When America was attacked, its population became incredibly nationalistic, and rallied wildly behind a leader who was of mediocre popularity beforehand. Assume other countries are also populated by human beings. (EDIT: Ezra also reminds us that President Ahmadinejad is not Hitler, primarily because unlike Hitler, he doesn't actually run anything. If you're going to argue that Iran s dangerous, then you have to start with the idea that you're talking about the Islamic Supreme Council going batshit nuts and signing their own death warrants, and move on from there. At least that will be a factually accurate discussion.)

Ezra Klein is also way cool, even though I have neckties older than him.