May be that BushCo, feeling that US army equipment is to old, needs to have it's friends from the military-industrial complex, resupply at a premium price?
Or that this administration is really in cohoot with Al-Quaeda.
Anyone with 5 cents of common sense knows that it's going to be a disaster, even if they succeed in nuking Iranian "nucular" facilities,
the dammages to the US is going to be so humongous that they risk being shunned by most countries.
And then China who needs Iranian petrol, is going to be really pissed.
Then again it's probably just some sort of psycological sickness affliction of Bush-Chenney gang.
Isn't madness an impeacheble state?

IF the timing of rolling out the Iran PR package is timed for September, that part of the timing has to do with throwing an IED into the Democratic presidential parade. As in September, 2002, the ensuing months witnessed the collapse of courage within Democratic ranks.

This time around, the Democratic candidates will be viewed through the lens of the 24/7 cable noise channels "reporting" on Iran. Apparently, Clinton and Obama have already indicated sympathy for preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Putting the two front running candidates on display as being kinda for getting tough with Iran but not really for war, will make them look wishy-washy and will split them from the Democratic base. Seems to me that not only does God want us to invade Iran, but that it will make for smart politics.

I can't see something along the lines of Global Strike (i.e., going in and trying to significantly degrade the Iranian nuclear capability). My belief is that they are a ways from being able to hold that target set to threat with the assets that they are able to bring to bear. (The SOAS piece in particular really read as if it were written by the contractors.) They will likely get to a point where they could launch a much larger strike from a smaller number of aircraft than has ever previously been seen, but I don't think they are there yet. Additionally, I have a feeling that they think that the currently fielded generation of penetrating munitions is right at the limit of effectiveness, and they'd like something better before they think they've got a high pK.

I would not at all be surprised to see some sort of limited strike targeting IGRC assets, particularly those allegedly involved in training Shia extremist elements thought to be targetting American personnel. My guess is that if they go in they will also hit a moderately large number of air defence targets, given that they'll be thinking about having to come back in the future. Might see something as large (in terms of targets hit, though I'd guess the sortie count and duration would be lower) as Desert Fox, but that's a pretty off the cuff take and I'd have to do more thinking about it.

"The spectacle of this great nation which does not know its own mind is as humiliating as it is dangerous." ~ Walter Lippmann

the Democrats are supine before the Bush administration, apparently unable to even stand up to, let alone check, a President with an under 30% approval rating, on an issue where the majority of Americans agree with them (that would be ending the Iraq war)

There is something wrong, even for the Democratic party, in that their behavior does not make sense unless you believe that we are not living in a Democracy. They are cowed or terrorized into inaction against, if this were a Democracy, a politically weak president. It must be that there is something we don't understand threatening the Democrats but what?

Give me control over a nation's currency,
and I care not who makes its laws.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
(1743 - 1812)

Democrats have the thinnest of margins in the Senate and certainly not enough votes to override filibusters, which the Republicans have been mounting furiously. So to appear as if they are doing something productive, they "compromise" with Bush on key legislation if they want to get anything done, but this means caving in to Bush's demands. Add to that their fear of being labeled weak on the war on terror, and you have an inability of the Democrats to do anything to stop the war.

The real problem here are the Republican senators. There is not one of them willing to stand up to Bush, and most of them anyway don't have the conviction that something needs to be done to stop the war. Ultimately this means that as of now, they aren't getting pressure from their constituents, especially their base, to withdraw the troops.

And why should there be any pressure? Americans don't have any skin in this game, unless they are among the few whose sons volunteered or got trapped in the National Guard. This is an abstract and painless war for Americans, who may dislike what's going on in Iraq and disagree with the administration's policy, but who have no incentive to do anything about it. Maybe if they decide to vote in 2008 they will punish the Republicans once again, but don't expect anything more from the American public until then.

If the Republican senators don't develop a conscience or any scintilla of concern for the long term global position of the U.S., there are only two nations that can then stir the American public to anger: China and Japan. If they decide not to buy the $50 billion in new bonds that are going to be issued to finance the war, the American public might have to stand up for the first time and accept some financial pain for this fiasco.

and I will say that is a shitty one with more than its share of cracks:

CheneyCo go into overdrive after Labor Day, with a massive blitz PR campaign and all the usual suspects (Corp Media) going redline with info-war-mercials about Iran. This reaches a real furious pace with 9/11/07 as Gen. P. delivers his dog and pony show to congress, they fold and give Bush everything he wants, and the news shows are 24/7 Iran bashing. The second Bush/Cheney feel enough of the public has bought the lie to provide cover, they launch a massive air assault to cripple Iran and "turn the tide" in the Mid-East.

Here is where it gets fun. No doubt their entire strategy revolves around obliterating Iran's ability in that intensive bombing campaign. As the Lebonese have shown us though, that dog don't hunt. So Iran responds not by attacking US boats in the Gulf but by more actively engaging our ground troops in Iraq and whipping up anti-occupation sentiment. As well as squeezing the oil pipe so damn tight that the world screeches to a halt and the US economy caves. And once we hit that point, we all get a real good eyeful of the abyss.

After that, who the hell knows? Pakistan jumps in, so India jumps in, so Russia jumps in, so China jumps in? WWIII? A draft in the USA? A civil war when the economy collapses and the beltway tells the mid-west/west to stick its thumb up its ass?

The wild cards here I would actually say is the bubble around Bush and Cheney. This isn't 2002, selling another unpopular war on the heels of this catastrophe might not be the slam dunk they expect. Americans are crazy, but we're not that crazy or stupid (close maybe.) Their extremely limited exposure to "the people" though ensures they don't realize or understand this point. If citizens really thought Bush would attack Iran, and if Congress does nothing, I wouldn't be completely surprised to see anti-war rallies turning into riots, riots into mobs, and angry mobs into a third political party (ok, that last part is a joke.)

But seriously, answer this for yourself: if you saw a 100,000 person armed mob shaking the fences at the WH over the Iraq/Iran war, would you want them to disperse before they got a promise the war was over, or would you secretly be cheering them on?

These are becoming very, very interesting times. I always wondered what it felt like to experience the fall of Fort Sumter, I shudder to think that I will actually get my chance.

Madness.

the Democrats are supine before the Bush administration, apparently unable to even stand up to, let alone check, a President with an under 30% approval rating, on an issue where the majority of Americans agree with them (that would be ending the Iraq war).

The Dems issue the occasional feeble bleat about incompetence and mistiming, but apart from Dennis Kucinich, when have any of them ever said they want to end the war(s)? Democrats believe in an unfettered imperial America just as much as GOPers. If BushCo doesn't attack Iran, President Hillary just might..

Only if he thought he was completely outnumbered by bank robbers.

Imagine a nation whose government has been taken over by a cabal of utterly ruthless men who control all the secret spy agencies, the press, the wealth behind campaigns and possibly also terrorist threats. Such a cabal could make life uncomfortable and uncertain for those who would actively oppose it.

In such a nation, the angry voice public opinion would seem strangely muted and ineffectual.

Welcome to BushWorld.

"Death before being dishonored any more." - Col. Ted Westhusing

Frankly, the notion that the US may limit air strikes within Iran to IRG facilities "alleged" to be training Shi'ite counterparts who are "thought" to be mounting attacks against US military in Iraq is a bit of a stretch. Unless Iran has signaled in advance that bomb and missile sorties by the US anywhere within Iranian territory will provoke only angry speeches by Ahmadinejad, a reasonable guess is that some sort of retaliatory action plan is in place within the Iranian leadership, and that such a plan or plans could be implemented shortly after a US strike, as the means to launch successfully a retaliation presumably would be unaffected by so-called "limited" US attacks. Which, of course, means that in turn a US response (to Iranian reaction) would perforce quickly escalate into a greatly stepped-up, multi-target, broad-spectrum "knock-out" blow in order to contain and limit further defensive or retaliatory action. And that puts one into a STRATCOM "global strike" modality anyway, so why muck about with the preliminaries.

As for the likely "casus belli", the IAEA and elBaradei are being rather unhelpful regarding "nuclear weapon threats", as all sorts of cooing noises are emerging from the UN on "positive" actions by Iran on facilities inspections, declarations, and transparency of programs. Indeed Ali Larijani has had several cordial and fruitful meetings with IAEA officials recently, and despite whatever anyone thinks that the IAEA should be saying to Tehran, there clearly seems to be mutual concordance on Iranian cooperation and compliance to date, Junior's hyperbolic blathering about "nuclear holocaust" notwithstanding.
Of course, the US does not need any UNSC action in order to attack Iran, certainly not more "sanctions" threats by the usual suspects, as current US defence doctrine (NSS-2002) calls for implementation of CONPLAN 8022 (or other "global strike" action not using nuclear weapons as part of the strike spectrum) to pre-emptively deny "rogue states" the capability of using (or developing) WMD, without any reference to international law or UNSC resolutions.

Seemingly, what then remains for "justification" exclusive of NSS-2002 guidelines is "Iranian interference" in Iraqi affairs and/or "Iranian assistance" in EFP attacks against US military targets. It's clear that the Petraeus/Crocker report won't provide much solace to the "pro-surge" camp, as several leaked and published reports the past week or so paint a relentlessly dismal picture of the current situation in Iraq - almost an across-the-board indictment of failures - and no amount of Codel PP briefings or "Freedom Watch" 30-second spots on US television will change the reality of it all. But, aside from the well-publicised delinquencies (from the American perspective) of al-Maliki and his Green Zone flunkies, who else can be "blamed" for "losing" Iraq? Given the increasing traffic going both directions between Tehran and Baghdad, it seems prima facie a weak case to fully implicate Iran in the manifold problems gripping Iraq, as relations between the two states (or two governments, to be precise) are friendly in a diplomatic sense at a minimum, and leaders from both countries have emphasised the mutual need for a settlement of the war.
The EFP allegations remain just that, and others have commented at length on both the validity of US claims and the actual military significance of EFP attacks, and so this line of argumentation has very little legs, certainly not enough to carry the day in respect to closing the case for (a third) war.

And so, we are left with really just two options here, IMO: a "full-spectrum" air assault against Iranian military and industrial targets (and damned the consequences), or status quo.

---

_{“les Etats-unis, c’est le seul pays à être passé de la préhistoire à la décadence sans jamais connaitre la civilisation…”...Georges Clemenceau}

i have read that cheney's media blitz begins post-labor day. the marketing plan will be to get enough folks terrified about iran's nuclear war-making capacity to get a 40% approval of attacking iran. cheney says "that's all we need."

targeted strikes or not, i fear we will step off the cliff if we invade yet another mid-eastern nation. it is making me insane, all of this seemingly unstoppable race to yet another war / attack / targeted air strike / what ever it's called, it is something he cannot and must not be allowed to do.

who to stop him? no idea. gates wasn't even aware of bush's request for another $50 billion.

must we continue to support israel no matter what, come hell or high water, whether it destroys our country or the region. must we?

congress won't cut off funding? maybe the world as a whole will take up the task of cutting off funding to this country. are we even spending any of our money anymore? what if we simply could not borrow any longer.

i realize that stopping our economy negatively impacts everyone. but so does WWIII. he must be stopped, but how? and by whom?

and the worst thing, i think, is that by attacking iran, we will turn against us one country in which many individual citizens are pro-US. we will end that and that is a shame. i thought i could not despise george bush any more than i already did. i was wrong.

Would Iran retaliate to bombing?

By Derek Sands Aug 31, 2007, 16:59 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Although U.S. airstrikes on Iran`s nuclear facilities and military would likely overwhelm their forces, Tehran could still rely on a host of weapons, from covert terror campaigns to long-range missiles, to retaliate against an American attack.

While Iran`s aging conventional military forces have little hope of successfully maintaining combat against U.S. forces in the Gulf in the case of U.S. bombing of Iran`s nuclear facilities, a quick attack by Tehran on ships in the Persian Gulf, and support of anti-American militias in Iraq and Afghanistan, could prove a real threat.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday warned that an attack on Iran would be a catastrophe, but reports on Aug. 14 that the Bush administration may designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group renewed fears that Washington may be seriously considering military strikes on Iran`s nuclear facilities. The guard is a military group within the Iranian government, but separate from the regular armed forces, and is widely believed to control Tehran`s nuclear program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and Tehran recently agreed to a timeline for more negotiations on convincing Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, but the Bush administration dismissed the agreement as nothing more than further delay by Iran.

The United States, as well as its allies in the United Nations, feels Iran is trying to develop nuclear technology and know-how in order to build a nuclear bomb, but Iran denies this, saying it only wants peaceful but independent nuclear power.

Some analysts see bombing as a possible approach if negotiations fail, but many think it would do little to eliminate the threat of Iran`s nuclear program, and at worst could rally support behind Tehran at a time when government economic policies are blamed for high unemployment and fuel shortages have led to violent protest.

But if Iran is attacked, Tehran has a wide variety of options to use in retaliating against the United States, analysts say.

Iran has 'a whole host of things, from the conventional, to the irregular, to missiles to terrorism, that they could use to retaliate,' according to Peter Brookes, a national security expert at the Heritage Foundation who has written extensively on U.S. relations with Iran, as well as Iran`s ambitions in the region.

'We could see some attacks against our forces in the Persian Gulf. They have anti-ship cruise missiles, highly capable Chinese anti-tank cruise missiles; they also could do suicide attacks against our ships,' Brookes said.

Not only could Iran act against naval forces, but its 1,500-kilometer-range Shahab-3 missile is within striking distance of Israel`s largest city, Tel-Aviv.

Anthony Cordesman, an expert at the Center for Strategic & International Studies who wrote several reports earlier this year about Iran`s military and its capacity to retaliate against the United States, also concluded that Iran could attack the United States with anti-ship missiles and mines.

Aside from attacks on U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf, both analysts suggested Iran would likely pursue unconventional attacks on the United States and its interests in the Middle East, whether by attacking U.S. territory through Hezbollah sympathizers in the United States or through increased support of insurgent activities in Afghanistan and Iraq.

'Iran has close relations with many Iraqi Shiites, particularly Shiite political parties and militias. Some Iraqi groups have warned against U.S. military strikes against their neighbors,' Cordesman wrote in a March report.

The Strait of Hormuz, at the base of the Persian Gulf and through which one-fifth of the world`s oil flows, has also been mentioned as a possible target of Iran, although Iran`s dependency on oil revenue would make that a problem for the country.

'The economy is in terrible shape in Iran, so if they don`t mind cutting their nose off to spite their face, they could certainly try. I don`t think they could cut off the Strait of Hormuz, but they could certainly sink a tanker,' Brookes said.

Cordesman`s assessment falls along the same lines.

'It could not close the Strait of Hormuz, or halt tanker traffic, but it could threaten and disrupt it,' and it 'can create a high-risk premium and potential panic in oil markets,' he said.

Despite how it chooses to retaliate if attacked, Brookes does not doubt Iran would act.

'I believe there would be some retaliation against U.S. forces in the region, U.S. interests in the region, and potentially the United States, and I think potentially Israel as well. And anybody who supported them probably would also become targets as well,' he said.

Iran`s outdated conventional military would likely pose little long-term threat to American forces, although it is currently modernizing its forces in an attempt to gain regional clout.

'They are trying to increase the capability of their conventional forces. Iran sees itself as a rising power in the region, it wants to be the most powerful country in the region, and it wants to be the regional hegemon, and to do that, it`s going to have to improve its military strength,' Brookes said.

1) A military attack on Iran in any shape or form is untenable. The disaster that was the Israeli mini-invasion of Lebanon last year pretty much put paid to any concept of succesful operations in Iran. What is going on is the leaking into credible reportage (hersh, Daily Kos, and other admin unfriendly places) in order to improve leverage for favorable diplomatic resolution. This is the third high threat period (for those with poor memories) in which an air attack is threatened. We should all fucking take a chill pill. Wait for a ground buildup before assuming that the latest batch of threats is credible.

2) Democrats aren't willing to leave iraq, probably because a)There substantial private pressures, legal and otherwise, against them. b) Leaving iraq would be an unparalleled geopolitical catastrophe for the US, hence the pressure. We went into Iraq to steal oil, not from iraq, but from France, Germany, Russia, and China. If we leave, we will be shut out of any share of Iraqi oil ('cause no one is going to forgive us). In this period of increasing peak oil pressures, oil will be increasingly nonfungible, and market failures will be imminent. A side tangent. We also went into Iraq to fuel the military industrial complex. When we shut down the war, there will almost certainly be a huge surplus of men as towards jobs available in the US. Recession and social turmoil is inevitable with the inevitable happens. I do think we need to leave Iraq as soon as possible, and work on cushioning the consequences. However, others probably think they can juggle events for awhile longer.

But being crazy isn't about being totally irrational, unless you're having a psychotic break.

Being crazy is about having an inappropriate set of rationalizations. Being crazy is deciding that Peak Oil is here and the best thing to do is take over Iraq, because lord knows, we couldn't just like, you know, end sanctions and invest in Iraq.

It doesn't mean that there are no boundaries to their thought. Bombing Iran leads to outcomes that are *plainly* unsuitable to Republican/Bushian aims. I believe it's obvious that they are trying for the Nixonian "crazy man" gambit.

We are currently down to one carrier in the Gulf ... a second is due to arrive in three months which suggests a timeframe.

Given that the Dems passed anti-Iran resolutions virtually unanimously, we have to assume they support the idea of war.

August 31, 2007
Executive Rampage
The War Criminal in the Living Room

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The media is silent, Congress is absent, and Americans are distracted as George W. Bush openly prepares aggression against Iran.

US Navy aircraft carrier strike forces are deployed off Iran.

US Air Force jets and missile systems are deployed in bases in countries bordering or near to Iran.

US B-2 stealth bombers have been refitted to carry 30,000 pound "bunker buster" bombs.

The US government is financing terrorist and separatist groups within Iran.

US Special Forces teams are conducting terrorist operations inside Iran.

US war doctrine has been altered to permit first strike nuclear attack on Iran and other non-nuclear countries.

Bush's war threats against Iran have intensified during the course of this year. The American people are being fed a repeat of the lies used to justify naked aggression against Iraq.

Bush is too self-righteous to see the dark humor in his denunciations of Iran for threatening "the security of nations everywhere" and of the Iraqi resistance for "a vision that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of political power." Those are precisely the words that most of the world applies to Bush and his Brownshirt administration. The Pew Foundation's world polls show that despite all the American and Israeli propaganda against Iran, the US and Israel are regarded as no less threats to world stability than demonized Iran.

Bush has discarded habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions, justified torture and secret trials, damned critics as anti-American, and is responsible, according to Information Clearing House, for over one million deaths of Iraqi civilians, which puts Bush high on the list of mass murderers of all time. The vast majority of "kills" by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan are civilians.

Now Bush wants to murder more. We have to kill Iranians "over there," Bush says, "before they come over here." There is no possibility that Iranians or any Muslims who have no air force, no navy, no modern military technology are going to "come over here," and no indication that they plan to do so. The Muslims are disunited and have been for centuries. That is what makes them vulnerable to colonial rule. If Muslims were united, the US would already have lost its army in Iraq. Indeed, it would not have been able to put an army in Iraq.

Meanwhile the US media focuses on whether Republican Senator Larry Craig is a homosexual or has offended gays by denying to be one of them. The run-up for the public's attention is why a South Carolina beauty queen cannot answer a simple question about why her generation is unable to find the United States on a map.

The war criminal is in the living room, and no official notice is taken of the fact.

more

So, dumb question - how far do our missiles fly?

Ships and Submarines

Carriers:
USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) - South China Sea
USS Enterprise (CVN 65) - Persian Gulf
USS Nimitz (CVN 68) - South China Sea
USS George Washington (CVN 73) - Atlantic Ocean

Amphibious Warfare Ships:
USS Nassau (LHA 4) _ Atlantic Ocean
USS Peleliu (LHA 5) - Pacific Ocean
USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) - Gulf of Aden
USS Bohomme Richard (LHD 6) - Persian Gulf
USS New Orleans (LPD 18) - Pacific Ocean

in Phase III of Bush's War.

What gives Bush his new cockiness? The total collapse of the antiwar coalition on Capitol Hill and the breaking of the Congress.

Last spring, Bush vetoed the congressional deadlines for troop withdrawals, then rubbed Congress' nose in its defeat by demanding and getting $100 billion to support the surge and continue the war.

Before the August recess, Democrats broke again and voted to give Bush the warrantless wiretap authority many among them had said was an unconstitutional and impeachable usurpation of power. They are a broken and frightened lot.

Comes now evidence congressional Democrats have not only lost the pro-victory vote, but forfeited the peace vote, as well.

According to a Zogby poll the last week in August, just two weeks before Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker report, Americans, by 45 percent to 20 percent, give this Democratic Congress lower grades on handling the war than the Republican Congress it replaced.

Fifty-four percent of the nation believes, contra Harry Reid, the war is not lost. That is twice the support that Bush enjoys for his war leadership, a paltry 27 percent. But, by nine to one, Bush's leadership on the war is preferred to that of the Congress of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

Incredibly, only 3 percent of the nation gives Congress a positive rating on its handling of the war. Congress has lost the hawks, and the owls, and the doves. No one trusts its leadership on the war.

And George W. smells it. He no longer fears the power of Congress, and his rhetoric suggests he is contemptuous of it. He is brimming with self-assurance that he can break any Democratic attempt to impose deadlines for troop withdrawal and force Congress to cough up all the funds he demands.

and

Who or what can stop this drive to war?

Last spring, Nancy Pelosi herself, after a call from the Israeli lobby, pulled an amendment that would have forced Bush to come to Congress for specific authorization before attacking Iran. Before the August recess, the Senate voted 97 to zero for a resolution sponsored by Joe Lieberman to censure Iran for complicity in the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

The resolution explicitly rejected authorization for immediate military action, but the gist of it declared that Iran is participating in acts of war against the United States, laying the foundation for a confrontation.

What is to prevent Bush from attacking Iran and widening the war, at a time and place of his choosing, and sooner than we think?

Nothing and no one.

If I had a dog that insisted on attacking other dogs and killing them, I'd have it euthanized. Indeed the local laws would probably demand it.

How about opening a prison colony in Antarctica and sending these accidents of breeding to it?

The whole business of preemptive war just sickens me. We need to relabel the Defense Department as the War Department and call a spade a spade.

Scott Horton blogging for Harper's reminds us that Michael Ledeen's book The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction is coming out September 4th. Right on schedule.

From the GMAFB department, the Publisher's Weekly review says this about Ledeen.

One of the cooler heads at AEI and the National Review, Ledeen presents discussions not on bombs and tactical strikes, but on the moral, logistical and material support for Iranian dissidents, who he claims make up a clear majority of the population. While he may overestimate the potential for regime change in the near future, Ledeen's suggestions merit further discussion.

Its unlikely that Bush will attack Iran soon (there have been many such predictions before, and none have borne fruit). But if he does, it will be interesting to see the impact on US army and marine units in Iraq. By many accounts these units are highly stressed at the moment. If a massive airstrike is launched against Iran, then a great deal of logistical support will have to be diverted to the airforce and navy, air support will be diminished and special forces units will be reassigned to scouting missions inside Iran. Perhaps most importantly, an unpredictable number of Shiite militia groups will attack Americans in support of Iran. If the US army is close to breaking, then this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back....