Iran is doing exactly what the US would do. Suppose the US had no nukes and China who had nukes landed an army in Mexico and started fighting with the locals over oil or whatever. What would the US do? Stand idly by and watch China gain influence over our neighbor? Not try to develop its own nukes? Not support Mexican factions that are traditionally allies of the US with weapons and intelligence?

The only acknowledgment I would like to see is that the US is an imperial power trying to enforce its imperial will on uncooperative smaller countries who happen to have resources the US wants. When the US acknowledges this then we can all move forward.

You are anthropomorphizing the states in question too much.

-t

Or is it wild animals?

A group of people is not a person. It is not inanimate, either. The dichotomy between persons and inanimate objects that you draw is mistaken.

To a person, it is reasonable to ascribe such mentality as the best guesses of our "mirror neurons" suggest, so to speak. Yet, to apply that same mode of thinking to a state is a bit crazy. "Human" is not fractal, in that way.

-t

Ok, Dave, where's the proof? Honestly, I haven't seen it. They're free to come up with some, but the bar is very high - after all, they made up "the proof" on Iraq.

It's also unclear to me that you're replying to the article I actually wrote. In my article I:

1) stated that Iran may well be giving some aid to some actors in Iraq (though I really doubt they're giving substantial aid to Sunni groups)

2) Note that even if they are treating it as causus belli is a dangerous precedent - after all, the US has done the same thing in other nations, most notably Afghanistan. Should the USSR have nuked America into the ground for their part in killing nice Soviet boys?

3) Stated that the US can't afford a war with Iran right now anyway.

You're also wrong about drawing references to the run-up to Iraq. Let's spell it out again - they LIED to take the US TO WAR. That's their record. It is fair to call them on that record. Since the administration lies every day about how much, say AQ, is part of the problem in Iraq, they have no credibility. They are lying right now, we know they are lying right now.

I honestly don't get what your problem is. I just don't. They lied in the past to take the country to war. They are lying right now. In amongst those lies may be some truths - so what? What I do know is that things I have an independent line on - say the presence of AQ in Iraq, they're lying on. Things I don't have an independent line on (Iranian weapons to Sunni insurgents) I don't see any reason to trust them - they don't get any "Oh, America's military and intelligence agencies wouldn't lie" credit. Sorry.

They have lied in the past. They are lying right now. They have zero credibility. For them to be believed, on anything, right now, requires a smoking gun.

No, I'll keep attacking their credibility AND the idea that supplying weapons is sufficient causus belli AND the idea that a war with Iran is a good idea regardless, given US overstretch.

As for the "oppo", let me put it crudely - FUCK EM. Their record on the Iraq war is to have called it wrong all down the fucking line. Those of us who expected the insurgency, who said things would keep getting worse, called it right. They have no credibility, because they have been WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

All they have going for them is that they are very good at propaganda and can say they have "secret info". That may well be enough, it was sure enough to convince 70% of Americans that Iraq was behind 9/11. But it doesn't give them any credibility with those of us who know that they are liars whose judgement has been proved incorrect time and time again.

...appears to be having the poor taste to disagree with you. If you'll try for a civil discussion rather than resorting to the shout capitals, I'll try to explain my position.

My contention is that Iran is substantially involved in Iraq through various overt and covert means, including those listed in the findings section of amendment 2073. You choose to believe that this evidence is dubious, unsourced, and vague. I disagree and have followed the evidence cited closely for a good long time and understand what I'm looking at - contrary to the "Iran doesn't manufacture 81mm mortar rounds" / "beehive charges = EFPs" folks, moreover I find it extremely consistent with Iranian actions in other conflicts over a period most conveniently measured in decades. I also assess that the reporting on all this is consistent enough, detailed enough, long-running enough, and multi-sourced enough that it can not be dismissed as deceit.

My further contention is that an argument that clearly acknowledges what Iran is doing, but seeks to counter those action with options other than war is more effective than one which rhetorically reduces the policy options to the binary you present in your piece: Iranian policy is casus belli, or not; Americans are being played with the aim of going to war; war is impossible; war is too expensive in terms of its effect on the price of oil.

When you hang all of your opposition to potential war on the notion that the Iranians aren't doing what the int says they are and leave it at that, then you don't have a lot left in the policy larder when folks don't agree with you and believe that the Iranians are doing what the int says they are. Make some arguments about what should be done other than war, if the Iranians actually are doing some or all of what the int says they are.

In my view what you're building in making these hard binary white/black, right/wrong arguments is politics - forcing folks into little us/them boxes (and that notion that it's all about politics is only reinforced by the ceaseless references to the run up to Iraq). I'm interested in policy and good policy is about being resilient, about having a set of options at hand that has some flexibility when one finds that one's assumptions are wrong. If you couch the argument as you have with the decision being just war or not war, founded on the absence of evidence and high cost, what do you do when the evidence comes forth and you find to your surprise that people are willing to pay the butcher's bill? Have you prepared the policy ground for possible responses other than war or do you get steamrolled because the issue moves quickly? In the run up, have you missed opportunities to bleed the hardliners by forcing them to face less jingoistic options?

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

about what you said. I think some of what you are suggesting is smart politics, i.e. acknowledging that Iran is probably engaging in certain actions, etc. . .

But, I think Ian also has a huge point in that each time the Administration has made allegations and offered some kind of proof it's been garbage. So, I think to a great degree Ian is right that the Democrats and their surrogates need to attack on that basis: that everything OVP and POTUS has on offer is based on lies. Check the track record. Repeat every chance you get.

If they persist then I think your tack is advisable, "so, the Iranians are engaged in actions of this sort--to a certain extent, Are those actions a casus belli?"

Here's where Ian's frustration--and mine--comes in: the Senate basically said that Iran is engaged in conduct that is a casus belli! That's why were both so infuriated. If the opposition to a war in Iran doesn't ramp up and ramp up soon it's going to happen.

And that sucks no matter how you slice it.

^{"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination."}

on the radio I took a mix of your suggestions, Dave and Ian's: while your was the more thoughtful, Ian's approach left the callers without much to say in reply.

^{"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination."}

Ian's approach left the callers without much to say in reply.

Why would that be a goal? I mean, I'm sure you don't mean to put your personal business interests ahead of our globally shared interests in world affairs -- that would make you analogous to your negative portrayals of the MSM.

-t

that a war with Iran is a bad fooking idea. Don't you think that's a worthwhile goal?

^{"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination."}

that a war with Iran is a bad fooking idea. Don't you think that's a worthwhile goal?

I want to believe so and I think J.P.D. and I are united in the narrow way that we both hope you et al. will help persuade us so. You are so far failing to do so in some articulable ways, which J.P.D. has been carefully laying out.

-t

...I think war with Iran is a catastrophically bad idea. Where I disagree is in how one sets the policy and sells it politically to avoid war.

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

...I think war with Iran is a catastrophically bad idea.

There don't seem to be any specifically good options/ideas on the table. I.e., you don't have to convince anyone of "bad idea" -- the question is whether or not it is the "least bad among the all the various bad ideas (where there doesn't seem to be any idea that isn't in the set of bad ideas)".

Where I disagree is in how one sets the policy and sells it politically to avoid war.

Community experience in the open source software world yields the maxim that "with enough eyes on the problem, all bugs are shallow".

I understand your admonitions in previous messages in this thread to be pointers towards the actual problem. Good ideas are easy to sell -- I wouldn't worry about that too much, initially. Agreement about the nature of the problem for which ideas are needed is where we have problems (is what I understand you to say and is something I agree with).

Better?

-t

...which is more valuable:

a) leaving a political opponent without a comeback, or

b) ensuring that LCpl Snuffy has some viable options vis-a-vis Iranian influenced militias in his sector?

Policy first, then figure out how you're going to sell it politically. When politics drives policy, policy seems invariably to suffer - politics, on the other hand, frequently prospers when driven by policy.

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

is a pretty darn good policy, not just good politics. As a matter of fact, it appears as if avoiding war with Iran is bad politics.

And I know it may be hard to believe, but when I go on the radio I'm there in good faith--I'm not trying to shill for the Dems. I'm trying to save my country from making a disaster.

^{"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination."}

...good faith - I have never, and I mean never believed that you'd place the interests of your party before the interests of your country.

My point would be that you may need to leave your opponent with a comeback, so that you can help bring them round to better policy that they'd reflexively reject. The object ain't just to beat 'em - the object's to make 'em think, and think particularly about how their side's giving 'em damn all in the way of smart options.

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

One might not believe that one's political opponents are reasonable people, acting in rational good faith on best avaiable evidence. One might not believe that one's opponents might have a privileged perspective on relevant information.

Yet, within one's political opposition, if one maintains the habit of acting as if one's opponents are reasonable people and as if they might have the superior situational awareness -- then one can be a lot more politically effective.

It's almost like a poetic form -- the reasonable person principle. Whatever one says in politics needn't rhyme or scan in a particular way -- but it should enter into the world view of your political opponents through the device of assuming that they are entirely reasonable, missing only information or logical insight, either of which one might supply to change the course of events.

-t

Wow, TPM is goofy
The TPM piece is rubbish. If the game is to draw reasonable speculations from the sources it cited, it does a lousy job, meanwhile bending over backwards to find some way to rescue the trip as a blow to the administration.

( ... Link ... )

instructive
It's instructive to me to see how baseless rumour and democratic party political spin turns into accepted fact in some circles... even if you do believe that, aren't you led to the basic conclusion that Pelosi is a gullible idiot, unqualified for a trip like this one?

( ... Link ... )

Do carry on.

I love to watch an artist at work.

I love to watch an artist at work.

Thank you.

-t

To throw into the mix:

It is foolish to assume that there is any such thing as limited war with Iran -- limited either to scope of engagement with Iran or in immediate regional consequences. I sense that you would agree with that.

The idea of hot engagement of Iran should be treated as no different from the idea of committing to a systempunkt collapse of the Iranian state and, with better than random probability at least, committing to a systempunkt collapse of the bulk of the region. In which cases, death tolls start to look distinctly comparable in scale to Nazi death camps. We might get lucky and do much better than that but plannnig should not assume so.

Which is to say, the questions you raise are urgent and I hope that Ian and kin turn their minds to them.

Nauseous, isn't it?

If there is redemption anywhere in there, it might have something to do with the fact that the death camps are arguably there already, and the only remaining question is who is in power over them. At least our aim is to shut them down.

-t

talking about dasht?

^{"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination."}

The "Tragedy of History".

-t

I'm puzzled by the death camp reference too.

These days, in England, and Canada, and the U.S., and Iran -- in all of those cases -- social and technological arrangements are shifting, these days, towards new forms of surveillance of and positioning of and in other ways control of individual people. In some sense it was ever so but, these days, the pace of innovation and build-out seems notably swift.

I'm speaking very broadly, not just of governments. Of course there are famous things like London's surveillance of public spaces or the U.S.'s mucking around in the switching closets of major telecoms. But, the more subtle and often non-state stuff is equally... er... interesting. Corporate handling of so-called private information, Internet-enabled crime organizations -- it's just "power" generally that is ramping up its tools for exherting control over all of the material aspects of people.

So, anyway, that's the global trend, sadly (I didn't mean to leave out any other nation -- the one's above are mentioned just as convenient examples).

One of the possible nightmare-scenario limit-case outcomes of that trend is to wind up with populations that are, basically, "domesticated" in the sense that agricultural species are domesticated. Domesticated species are, basically, known quantities in an engineering process -- they are (for all human purposes) 100% controllable "devices" -- mix inputs at various levels and get certain predictable outputs.

Complete control, of pedagogy, family structure, ecomic status, health care and jurisprudence over a domesticated population of humans is slavery perfected. That subject population is "dead". It is a soul death.

I don't like slave owners.

-t

when you just attempted to semantically link Iran with "death camps", upon closer inquiry you were merely speaking metaphorically of practices/policies ("soul death") of which, by extension, Western corporations and governments are also guilty?

when you just attempted to semantically link Iran with "death camps", upon closer inquiry you were merely speaking metaphorically of practices/policies ("soul death") of which, by extension, Western corporations and governments are also guilty?

Not at all.

I am not speaking metaphorically. Slavery perfected may be a slow death but it is a certain death. Sould death is death -- it is just a death in which your killer takes particular delight in sucking the marrow out of your soul as you die.

I am not equivocating between the ills of Western corporations and governments and the ills of Iran. That equivocation is your thing, not mine. I pointed out that they have, in common, a technology-driven acceleration -- which is no small part of my sense of urgency about, for one example, Iran. But, observing that commonality is here meant to help convey why Iran and places like it are urgent, by relating it to lesser problems that happen to be closer to home.

-t

Anyone can read the preceeding 7 posts. You brought up death camps in Iran as a possible existing reality. You made the comparison to Western corporations and governments. All the others are questions trying to get at what you mean. You probably need to look up "equivocation" in the dictionary. And when you say things like "your killer takes particular delight in sucking the marrow out of your soul as you die", you should probably give us the appropriate Patronus spell. Or, you know, we might wet our beds.

That you've never met evil really face to face. Nihilism, for you, is perhaps just a "color" someone might give to their speech. I think I start to get it now -- why communication around here is so difficult....

-t

recognizing it in the mirror is always the tricky part.

A truly brilliant reply!!!!

(and boy, is it ever nice to have you around again.)

and it IS great to see Escher around. :)

Add that to the " all your ad hominems do is further persuade me that are on the verge of mob-backed facism at a point where reasoned discourse is called for." And a really nice "You're flying around on this sea of bogus suppositions and deep disregard for our founding texts. You use language without much care, mostly to emphasize by repetition political enmities and alliances. You consistency polarize politics along lines of personality and clique membership. You speak from a presumption of (at least vicarious) victemhood. You very much help to form the negative space, on the canvas of populism, against which suitably placed charasmatic types can go to town. Meanwhile, on the stage of US politics, you are being pandered to."

Damn, I must be good!

...the notion that anything other than unlimited war with Iran is possible. Look to the history - there have been a number of limited reprisal operations. Not least, the history there's rich enough that the Iranians refused to believe that downing their airbus was an accident. Things would be more complicated now (this would be a prime example of why the Iranians have made the investment in ballistic missiles that they have - which would in turn be the reason for the PAC-3 Patriot deployments a while back), but I'm pretty skeptical that anything immediately spirals to high intensity conflict. Messy, yes - immediately a major regional conflict, no.

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

Actually I'm quite unsure that I agree with...the notion that anything other than unlimited war with Iran is possible.

I'm fretting about the "soccer mob" mentality.

-t

...to really parse what I did say, but suffice it to say that I do believe that, if necessary, it is possible to engage in military operations against Iran without it becoming unlimited war, provided one is very, very careful.

In the morning I will process more completely and seek to figure out WTF I really did say...

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

Perhaps. But perhaps not. Keeping wars "limited" doesn't always work out. Especially since, if I'm the Iranians, I know I'll lose a limited war.

...is very likely to go sideways. Anything that looked at all like it might go after their strategic nuclear program, for example, would escalate dramatically. Well chosen punitive strikes might well not get to the point of open warfare. There'd absolutely be tit for tat, but these guys have been there before and they know that there are real serious downsides to going too far.

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

Isn't limited war only possible if both sides agree to only bomb each other a little? The terminology makes no sense to me. Do you worry about what the Shiite response in Iraq would be?

...I'm not advocating "limited war" or even use of force directly against Iran. Going after the EFP networks would necessarily involve some use of force against Iranian assets inside Iraq, but I don't think I'd want to go much beyond that, were it my decision. It could well escalate to tit for tat reprisals, but I'd sure want to keep things from going any further. Others may disagree, but to my mind all this is a level of conflict well below limited war.

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

I was having a hard time picturing you cheerleading a war. I wonder now with Saudis making up the bulk of insurgents how the administration will spin it to be still Iran's fault. I suppose the Saudis were poor and needed funding ;)

...idea whose fault it ultimately is (and a big part of it's theirs i.e., the USG's). The problem is that it's part of a decades long trajectory, ultimately linked to the founding compact of the Saudi state. Hence, they're keeping quiet about it - the Saudis don't have a lot of choice and State knows it. Additionally, as I mentioned in another thread - if the Saudis lock these guys down totally and don't leave the escape valve cracked a bit, they'll go after the Saudi state even more than they already have, and particularly the oil infrastructure. $150 a barrel oil would give the West even less potential leverage over the Iranians than they currently have.

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

Politics is policy Dave. That's what professional analysts often don't seem to get.

You may want flexible options. What I see is that the flexibility you want leads to giving very bad actors who want war their causus belli. This isn't an administration where one can have lots of subtle shades of grey because any rope you give them, they will use for predetermined policy goals. They do not determine policy by what works, they determine policy by what their ideology says will work. And then, in almost every case, their policy fails.

One of the rules of dealing with the Bush administration is that if you have a policy goal, you do not want them to do it. Because they will screw it up. That's their record.

You may find caps rude, but I found it rude that you read only one of the three points I made in the article.

Again: I don't believe the claims because the people making it are known liars who have a pattern of lying about just such issues and are currently lying about other things I can confirm are lies right at this very moment. The fact that what they say is plausible doesn't cut it. Good lies often are plausible (the other kind are so unplausible no one would believe anyone would lie about them.) But let's say that for once they're telling the truth (and I do trust your judgement a fair bit), even if that is the case:

a)war with Iran is still a really bad idea. The US is losing two wars, does it really need to lose a third one at the same time? Do we really need our economies wrecked by what will happen to the price and supply of oil?

b) I don't see supplying weapons as causus belli. Again, should the Soviets have nuked America into ashes because the Americans were supplying the Mujahideen and killing "their boys"? Certainly the Nicauragrans had causus belli, but were too weak to do anything about it. Plenty of other nations have also had causus belli under those terms.

I will also note, yet again, that the Bush administration was very publicly wrong about Iraq, in every way possible. They have no credibility, they are at this exact time, lying about other things we know. I see no reason to grant them any presumption of truth on anything. Why should I? Why should anyone? And let's say you're right and they are telling the truth on Iranian aid to, apparently, practically everyone in Iraq - well, they've got the problem the Boy Who Cried Wolf has, don't they?

The rhetoric in the resolution is the sort of rhetoric leads towards war. It is the same sort of rhetoric that lead to the Iraq war. It's very dangerous.

Again, if it were another administration, I might just think "oh, they're using this to put diplomatic pressure on Iran but they wouldn't be insane enough to..."

I can't give Bush that benefit of the doubt. Just can't do it. Nor can I give the Senate the benefit of the doubt. Their past behaviour shows they can be stampeded into almost all voting for very bad bills by fear and jingoism.

But let's turn it back to you. Let's say you're right, and Iran is giving a lot of weapons and aid to factions who are killing US occupation troops in Iraq. Let's say I were to agree, the President was to agree and Congress was to agree (and hey, 2 of them do agree, and my opinion doesn't really matter).

What do you think should be done about it? What policy option do you think would work to make the Iranians stop? As far as I can see what you want - people acknowledging Iran is behind giving weapons and aid, is the official position of everyone who matters in the US government and military.

So - what should they do about it? What can some light Colonel on the ground do about it that will have any real effect? What should the President be doing? What should Congress be doing? What should the Secretary of State be doing?

I suspect my answer wouldn't be that different from yours, actually. But I'm curious, let's see...

...politics is frequently anything but policy. I've seen far too much political rhetoric that served to conceal policy to ever believe that. But that, that's a piece for another day. I did read all your argument and "speaks against it using the politicized language that draws in the run up to the Iraq war" covers, in my twisted thought at least, your points two and three as originally expressed.

It's good that you don't trust the administration, because I don't trust them either. But, if you want to keep them from doing dumb things, you have to give the folks in areas of government other than the White House a freer range of options so they can subvert and undercut. That means not seeking to limit their range of actions. The part of the electorate that's most passionate about ending the war shouldn't tie a rhetorical anvil to the legs of their political representatives that helps guys that aren't averse to a more prolonged war sell the notion that those representatives are out of touch with what's going on. And this is a guy that wants a longer draw down than you do telling you this.

Every time that you say the Bush administration has no credibility on the intelligence, you systematically undercut anyone more towards your side of the issue that accepts the intelligence and wants to do anything with it other than go to war. You've properly highlighted that this isn't something worth going to high intensity conflict over, but neither is it something that it is acceptable to simply ignore - not least because to do so tremendously weakens your political hand. So too, does only saying "I don't believe the intelligence". If you spend all of your time and energy pushing that position, what are you going to do if you suddenly turn out to be wrong? How many months behind the game are you willing to be? Good policy takes time and it needs be receptive to opportunities that come along over time - sticking to disbelief with fervour gives you less time and ensures missed options that really bite when the field reverses on you. Protect against gullibility, to be sure, but hedge the bet.

Yes rhetoric like this can be dangerous. Counter-rhetoric that focuses solely on saying no to the underlying premise of war, buttressed with arguments that in my opinion are likely going to be proven wrong, is similarly dangerous. Talk about accepting to argue in a framework that's damaging to your strategy - this is to my mind an example. If the facts buttressing your counter are wrong, where's your fallback position? You've said you don't trust them and they shouldn't be followed in very large part because they were wrong previously - what happens if they are demonstrated correct this time? Where does that leave the argument? You can shift to being against war on issues of competence of prosecution, expense, and morality, but that's playing catch-up. Far better that one have a prepared and viable alternative policy that can be sold politically on issues of competence, expense and morality.

I don't think that the Iranians can be made to stop, but I believe they can be hindered. The most immediate problem from a US perspective is the EFP networks - these get targetted with the SOF and Int fusion apparatus that went after Zarqawi. This is, I think, the Iranians perceived biggest threat and the motivator for the recent spate of tit for tat kidnapping. Other than that, the standard lessons of dialogue, engagement and dropping the regime change rhetoric would apply - seek to stop giving the hardliners in Iran further buttressing. A few other tactical things could be done like slipping booby trapped Iranian ammo into the supply pipeline and good psyops expounding on native Iranian-Iraqi mistrust of one another - given that the Iranians seem willing to fight to the last Iraqi Shia, there's material to work with.

From a strategic sense, the biggest piece the Iranians have on the board is their sway over Hezbollah and to a lesser extent Hamas. I tend to think that the thing to do is to threaten the loyalty of those pieces - engage them, woo them; soft music, long walks, hand holding. Wake up to the fact that the potential threat that Islamist resistance movements will hold to the state of Israel after an Israeli withdrawal can be greatly reduced and maybe even ultimately eliminated, rather than increasing as current policy is doing. Folks don't seem to realise that there was initially serious opposition among the Shia to Hezbollah continuing to be an armed state within a state after the Israeli withdrawal, founded on a belief that the movement had validity as a resistance movement but that that validity did not extend to attacking Israel once it had been removed from Lebanon. Support for maintaining an armed capability was concentrated among highly religious Shia. The events of last summer almost certainly broadened that base of support far beyond religious Shia, but there remains material to work with, over a period of time. Similar notions would extend to Syria - aiming to strip them off. Engage Syria and Iranian proxies, but contain Iran while making it clear that constructive engagement can be readily obtained based on policy change.

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

WWIII has been going on for a number of years now. You're right (but late to the party) about that. My opinion, really, is that WWII never quite finished -- we're still there.

As for an attack on Iran uniting the crescent -- yup, that's probably the initial reaction. And that's probably about all it is, afaict: just "initial". The radical nihilists have nothing to offer but the thrill of indignation. Lube 'em up.

-t

No, we are still in the run-up. We can still stop.