Okay, too much silence around here might not be as spooky as too much silence about Iran, but enough is enough.
In the latest follow-up to all the stage-setting documented already below here in Montfort’s post on the administration’s warmongering toward Iran from about three weeks back, this morning’s salon.com has a few newly recounted pieces of the puzzle that is the Bush (/vs.) Cheney administration (or rather Cheney vs. Bush administration?)…
In an article titled “Why Bush won’t attack Iran,” Washington Note blogger Steven Clemons goes inside and anonymous-source to report the words of current and former Bushies and Cheneystas. (Check out as well this page of Clemons’ blog for a foreshadowing from this past May, as well as the hard-to-look-at but surely-most-honest photo of our impeachable VP in the archives of VPdom. Is that a Spiro Agnew-plus snarl of disdainful hatred or what?)
While I think the Juan Cole comparison of Bush and Napoleon in the Middle East, linked in Montfort’s post below, is unimpeachable, it is shuddering to imagine how history might have changed if, to boot, Napoleon had had a Cheney as his “VP.”
Clemons’ own conclusion — that war against Iran is not off the table but only because Cheney would corner Bush into it — hinges chiefly on this:
One member of Cheney’s national security staff, David Wurmser, worried out loud that Cheney felt that his wing was “losing the policy argument on Iran” inside the administration — and that they might need to “end run” the president with scenarios that may narrow his choices. The option that Wurmser allegedly discussed was nudging Israel to launch a low-yield cruise missile strike against the Natanz nuclear reactor in Iran, thus “hopefully” prompting a military reaction by Tehran against U.S. forces in Iraq and the Gulf. When queried about Wurmser’s alleged comments, a senior Bush administration official told the New York Times, “The vice president is not necessarily responsible for every single thing that comes out of the mouth of every single member of his staff.”
We know Bush rebuffed Cheney’s view and is seeking other alternatives. That is the most clear evidence that Bush is not committed to bombing Iran. Even if Bush wanted to make the Iranians believe that he could go either way — diplomacy or military strike — Bush would not so clearly knock back one side in favor of the other to the point where the “bad cops” in a good cop/bad cop strategy would tell anyone on the outside that they did not enjoy the favor and support of the president.
I would question Clemons’ presupposition in that last comment: This administration is, imo, way way way too convoluted and (now, it seems) also too fractured to posit such a certainty as “would not so clearly knock back one side in favor of the other to the point where….”
But the price of admission (watching salon’s intro ad) is already paid off by the ‘hook’ on which Clemons launches his article with quite the Beltway visual: Recounting a recent insider dinner which entailed a debate not seen at, I dare say, any other sophisticate dinner table maybe in history, a debate whose two sides were voiced by Brzezinski, assessing Bush as heading for a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Scowcrof, espousing (prayer-like) a belief that Bush would hold his guns, Clemons’ inside look is capped with this vintage-Saturday-Night-Live-worthy image:
The 18 people at the party, including former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, then voted with a show of hands for either Brzezinski’s or Scowcroft’s position. Scowcroft got only two votes, including his own. Everyone else at the table shared Brzezinski’s fear that a U.S. strike against Iran is around the corner.
NB: While you’re at salon.com for Clemons’ whole article (to which I cannot do full justice), also check out, if you didn’t already see, this piece from yesterday: “Guns, not roses, for Iraq.”
btw, in case it wasn’t clear, the purpose of this post was to be a teaser to get you to read the salon article(s) and see how this interpretation of Bush/Cheney-vis-a-vis-Iran strikes you. I wasn’t seeking to “make a point” about the article or the underlying facts except to note, en passant, one thing I found surreal and another I found questionable. I know I usually surface only to launch more or less of a tirade but I think I’m all out of tirades for the moment… :-) It’s been a very exhausting six-and-a-half years. For all of humanity, I dare say, …. well, except for those who got the cream of the Bush tax cuts, that is, the cow that keeps on giving…
late addition:
While you’re updating yourself on the various thrusts and parries vis-a-vis Iran, check out “Iran Blowback?” fresh out in The Nation and also citing the Clemons’ perspective in the above-linked article in salon.
As so many keep saying, the no-brainer here is that Bush has been the best thing that could have happened to Iran. Or, to paraphrase Clemons again, the only winners in all this build-up to war are/would be Ahmadinejad and … [drum roll] … Dick Cheney. As The Nation’s Engelhardt puts it, “Who would be the beneficiary of a late-term Bush administration assault on Iran? Only one thing is clear at the moment–not the United States.”
Note to self: From the above-linked page of Clemons’ blog back in May, a letter by “LondonYank” with the following observations to check back on for predictability value:
I’m not sure what to think. I’ve believed Cheney & Co. were determined to attack Iran for a long time. I expected it last October, and again this spring. They probably still do want to attack Iran, but the forces arrayed against them are organised and growing.
First, China has demonstrated that it could knock out all our military navigation and communication satellites in a number of hours. Ever since January you might have noticed that admirals and generals are a lot less keen on a war. Our ships would be blind sitting ducks. Our most advanced weapons systems would be useless.
Second, Saudi Arabia has got all stroppy and started cutting deals behind our backs in the Middle East, with China, with India and with Europe. Bush’s buddies in Saudi now say that their marriage to America is Catholic – so no divorce – but because they are Muslim they can take another, younger wife – China. 75 percent of Gulf oil exports go to Asia.
Third, Europe has gotten real confusing for Bush. He doesn’t know any of the new players. He hates what he does know about Gordon Brown, who will replace Blair within weeks. He can’t count on anyone white to give him cover of legitmacy this time around.
Fourth, Russia is much more powerful and agile now than it was five years ago. Five years ago Russia watched us storm into Iraq and did nothing. Russia will allow us to storm into Iran, and then they will do to us what we did to them in Afghanistan. Now that they know it was Robert Gates who suckered them into the briar patch and then financed and armed Al Qaeda to destroy the Soviet military, they will be keen to return the favour.
Fifth, Iran has been more reasonable and very effective at diplomacy in the region and in Asia and Europe lately. That and it has the best value-for-money military on the planet (about $91 per capita), having prepared for defensive operations ever since we instigated Saddam’s invasion of Khuzestan (90 percent of Iran’s oil reserves). The proxy war in Lebanon last year was meant to prove the model for massive attacks on civilian infrastructure to destabilise response, and then combined air superiority with limited ground occupation to hold Khuzestan. It failed there and will fail in Iran. We won’t hold Khuzestan long enough or peacefully enough to get any oil out, no matter how many millions of cluster bombs we drop on the surrounding mountains.
If the USA attacks Iran it will not only be the end of US hegemony in the world, it will probably be the end of the US as free and wealthy nation. I would expect economic collapse, dictatorship and civil war within 10 years. With the Bushies thrown off their game plan of one party rule by rigged voting machines, a politicised Justice Department and crony courts, few Republicans have the stomach for the aggressive march toward dictatorship that an open grab for power requires. Most GOP officials are inclined to skulk in the darkness and start plotting again rather than press ahead with the full PNAC plan for global domination.
It’s too soon to know whether reason will prevail, but I have more hope than I did last year.
Posted by: LondonYank at May 24, 2007 03:14 PM
Isn’t it great having an ex-SecDef as VP? I think operation “End Run” is afoot:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2512097.ece — Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike