What kind of nut wants war with Iran?

By Joseph Galloway
McClatchy Newspapers

There were some things far more frightening last week than
Halloween's small ghouls and goblins -- and the scariest of all is
the Bush administration's seemingly inexorable march toward military
confrontation with Iran.

What are they smoking at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.? The very idea is
dumb as a fencepost and best left to the biggest pied piper of what
passes for neoconservative thought, Norman Podhoretz. Yet President
Bush and his able assistant, Vice President ***** Cheney, are marching
to that tune and humming along lustily.

There is no crisis here and no earthly reason to manufacture one on
short notice, except for the fact that in less than 15 months, the
Bush administration will pass ignominiously into history. Then a new
chief executive can begin dealing with ongoing wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq, a national debt nearing $10 trillion, a terrorist threat to
America only made stronger by eight years of Bush and Cheney, and a
national economy trembling on the brink of recession.

As though that weren't a big enough mess to leave behind, these
brilliant thinkers want to bequeath a third and far more dangerous
war to whoever is unlucky enough to win the tussle of midgets that
passes for a presidential contest.

There are two questions here: Why? And why now?

Yes, the centrifuges are whirling away in Iran's deeply buried and
widely dispersed nuclear facilities, enriching uranium that can be
used to power electric generation plants and, it's true, to build
nuclear weapons.

But most analysts say that even if the Iranians' ultimate ambition is
to build a nuclear weapon, it will take them another five or six
years to get there. Some say even longer.

How about we take a deep breath and -- once we have an administration
in power that believes that it is far better to talk, talk, talk than
it is to war, war, war -- negotiate with Iran without all those
preconditions so beloved by Bush and Cheney?

How about we do all we can to support the International Atomic Energy
Agency and its goal of inspecting facilities like those in Iran to
ensure that the product is used only for peaceful purposes?

If none of that works, we can count on one final fallback position:
If and when Iran gets within reach of building a nuke, Israel will
take out crucial parts of that system.

All of this argues against Bush and Cheney doing anything more than
running their mouths and pretending to be relevant, studly and in
charge as they stumble blindly toward the finish line and history's
harsh judgment.

The more thoughtful military and civilian advisers can rattle off a
dozen reasons why an American attack on Iran at this juncture would
be foolish in the extreme and risk setting the Middle East afire,
including:

Shutting down not only Iran's oil production but Iraq's as well, and
possibly triggering Iranian retaliation against the oil production
and shipping in Persian Gulf nations. Are we ready for $300-a-barrel
oil?

Putting 160,000 U.S. troops and another 125,000 U.S. and foreign
contractors in Iraq at much greater risk, as neighboring Iran signals
Shiite allies there to begin all-out war against us and sends in its
own well-armed guerrillas to lead the attack. Our 250-mile main
supply lines in Iraq run through the heart of Shiite-controlled
southern Iraq, and they would be cut. If we think we have troubles
now with the shaky Iraq national government, which already has
snuggled up to Tehran, what would war with Iran bring?

Risking confrontation with the newly oil-rich and energized Russian
Federation and President Bush's ex-KGB soulmate, Vladimir Putin.
Putin has his hand on the natural gas and oil pipelines that keep our
presumed allies in Europe from freezing to death, so it is wise to
assume that any support for a U.S. attack on his ally Iran would be
slim to none.

Assuming that any U.S. air war against Iran would not be enough by
itself --and such air campaigns seldom are definitive in modern
history -- where would we find the ground forces capable of doing the
really hard part? Our Army and Marine Corps are stretched to the
breaking point maintaining the force level in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We have no strategic reserves available to help secure our allies in
the Persian Gulf, much less to mount any offensive inside Iran.

No one in their right mind would believe that attacking Iran now
makes any sense. But that doesn't mean Bush and Cheney won't do it.

There were a lot of reasons why a pre-emptive strike into Iraq based
on flimsy and bogus intelligence and far too few troops made no
sense, yet they did it anyway, with trademark arrogance and ignorance.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

http://www.star-telegram.com/245/v-print/story/290611.html

--
"New York Times has all ready sent me a response stating you have
been warned."
-- prison clerk heishman lying as "Osprey" <noneedtok...@mail.com>
innews:2rCdnZNy7LA5OojdRVn_iw@comcast.com

What kind of nut wants war with Iran?