On Iran's "retaliation" - a guest perspective

Much discussed (elsewhere) is the high likelihood that Iran's recent missile attack on U.S. bases in Iraq was an "arbitrated response/deal..." one negotiated in advance, allowing Iran and Iraq a face-saving way to "retaliate" in some flashy way, without causing any U.S. casualties that would invite further vengeance. This kind of thing is classic in the art of de-escalation and is consistent with Trump's bipolar pattern - lashing out then hurriedly backing off and letting professionals help him minimize any blowback.

Below is a guest-commentary that was offered to a small group by my friend and respected investment guru Russ Daggatt. But first -- I agree that the Iranian missile attack will be seen as a rather lame pre-negotiated, pre-warned face-saver. And hence, there will likely also be deemed insufficient by many of the parties in the Ayatollahs' constituency. You can be sure it will be supplemented with a "deniable" attack of some nastiness, at a later point.

What would be smartest? On the Daily Show, Roy Wood comically suggested those with grievances against Donald Trump make threats against Trump hotel properties. The threats needn't be serious in order to have intended effects. Moreover, it seems apropos, since this whole affair was a choice made entirely by ol' Two Scoops, against the wishes of all responsible U.S. government adults. 

Any of you who have read either EARTH or Polemical Judo know that I long ago suggested that kind of non-lethal methodology for developing nations to use, applying the prim legal definitions of "war" to get their stolen trillions back from banking havens. I proposed they issue Letters of Marque for anyone to use stink bombs or streaking on the small nation's behalf. I am not recommending this to Tehran! Since in fact, that regime doesn't deserve any moral high ground -- it has none, and will soon be a Russian satrapy, in any event.

Still, one can fantasize such a measure simultaneously deterring Trump income while adding a touch of whimsey to lighten up a crisis.

Now over to Russ Daggatt.

==  The Iran Tiff: Factual background, by Russell Daggatt ==

Tonight, Iran has reportedly launched a dozen or so missiles at two US military bases in Iraq (apparently without American casualties). Iran has sent word that they won’t further retaliate if the US doesn’t. Obviously, a lot is still uncertain. Now’s a good time to pull back and look at what we hope to achieve from all this.

By any definition, assassinating the top military leader of another country is an act of war. (The last time we did it was during WWII, when we killed Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. But that was total war (we actually nuked Japan), declared by Congress.) General Soleimani was a national hero in Iran, which is a proud country of 80 million people. Their internal politics demanded some act of retaliation. (Had another country assassinated, say, Dick Cheney during the Bush years, every Democrat would have joined every Republican in demanding some kind of retaliation. And Soleimani was more beloved in Iran than Cheney was here.)

Instead of seeking to cool emotions, Trump has been escalating the conflict, engaging in the taunts, threats and insults that he is temperamentally inclined to spew in even the most trivial and benign of situations. Before we rush headlong into war (again), it’s worth asking what we are hoping to achieve and whether war is the best means of achieving those objectives.

Humans are tribal. We tend to see our tribe as virtuous and other tribes as evil or devious or, at a minimum, mistaken. It’s useful occasionally to see things from the other side (not always easy when the nationalistic drums of war are beating).

I’m no fan of theocracy. I would be happy to see the Iranian people throw off their’s (and hope we don’t embrace one here). But we have a pretty bad history with that country - from our overthrow of their democratically-elected Prime Minister Mosaddegh, to our shooting down Iran Air 655 (killing all 290 innocent men, women and children aboard), to supporting Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war (which cost upwards of a million lives), to abrogating the nuclear deal (with which they were complying) ... and now assassinating General Soleimani. They have far more reason to fear and hate us than we do them. The Iranian leadership has generally been relatively restrained into their regional behavior - aggressively advancing their interests, but in a low-cost manner that doesn’t overextend themselves or risk major escalation.

To review: We invaded and occupied countries on either side of Iran, and have remained there for nearly two decades. During that time, we’ve had as many as 180,000 troops in Iraq (to their west) and 100,000 in Afghanistan (to their east). There was really no way they could stay out of the chaos we created on their borders and throughout the region - they had and have too much at stake. (By comparison, what are our interests, 6000 miles away?)

Iran’s leadership has been portrayed in this country as fanatics bent on suicidal aggression. In fact, they are relatively conservative, cautious and pragmatic (unlike our current leadership). They have shown themselves repeatedly willing to deal with us when it is in our mutual interest. They initially worked with us in Afghanistan (General Soleimani supported our allies, the Northern Alliance, in the battle against the Taliban even before we got involved there) - until Bush declared them part of the “Axis of Evil”. In 2003, they proposed a “Grand Bargain” to resolve all our regional differences (including those re Israel), to which we didn’t even respond. And they led the fight against ISIS in Iraq - with US forces and Iranian-backed militia sometimes operating out of the same Iraqi bases (it’s fair to say ISIS might have overrun all of Iraq had it not been for General Soleimani).

The media have been constantly repeating the administration's claim that General Soleimani was “responsible” for the deaths of hundreds (or sometimes, specifically, 600) American troops. It’s true that Iran backed Iraqi Shiite militia in the civil war that was unleashed in the chaos following our invasion and occupation. The US was fighting both sides of that civil war at various times and various places, and sometimes we were fighting Iraqi Shiite militia backed by Iran. We killed a lot of Iraqi Shiites and they killed a lot of our troops. Over 4500 Americans died in Iraq, which means most of those deaths were from fighting the Sunnis who those Shiite militia were also fighting. In other words, much of the time, they were fighting the same people we were. But those Iraqi Shiite militia, with the support of Iran, did seek to drive us out of their country.

We need to accept the fact that there is no way we are going to eliminate Iranian influence in Iraq. We opened that Pandora’s Box in 2003. Iran is the center of the Shia faith and many of its most holy sites are on the other side of the arbitrary post-colonial border in Iraq. Iraq is majority Shiite and many if not most Shiites look to Iran as the center of their faith. It’s worth noting that there were no Iranian-backed attacks on US forces for eight years, from 2011 until Trump pulled out of the JCPOA. After 2014, we were on the same side in the fight against ISIS.

And then there was the *nuclear deal* - the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The more moderate elements of the Iranian government took a big risk negotiating with us. They peacefully dismantled their nuclear program under the most intrusive inspections regime ever agreed to by any country in the world. While some of the restrictions on their enrichment activity phase out over time, their commitment never to pursue nuclear weapons and to that inspections regime never expire. By all accounts, they fully complied with the agreement. But the moderates lost that bet. We reneged. The hardliners were proven right - the US can’t be trusted.

It's also worth noting that Soleimani, while a ruthless warrior and committed adversary of the US and Israel, was also a skilled diplomat and negotiator - one of the best in the region. He knew how far to push it, and when and how to cut a deal. In fact, he was in the process of doing so -- arguably lured to his fate by a false U.S. overture --  when a US missile killed him outside the Baghdad airport. Iraq’s Prime Minister said that Soleimani was bringing him Iran’s response to a Saudi proposal for de-escalating regional tensions. Since the US did not inform the Iraqi government that we were planning on killing Soleimani on Iraqi soil, we might not have known that was his mission that day.

(To further complicate things, among the others we killed along with Soleimani was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. That is a really big deal in Iraq by itself. He was the leader of an Iraqi Shiite militia that fought the US during our occupation of Iraq, and which the US says was behind the attack on a US base that killed an Iraqi-American contractor last month. But he was also deputy commander of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a state-sponsored coalition of mainly Shiite militia, nominally under the control of the Iraqi PM, formed in 2014 to fight ISIS. As the leader of that fight, Muhandis was considered a hero by many Iraqis (while considered a “terrorist” by the US). He had also been a security advisor to the first Iraqi PM after our invasion and a member of the Iraqi parliament. So, Muhandis was part of the Iraqi government, who fought against us during our occupation, but with us against ISIS. The Iraq PM said the killing of the Muhandis was an act of aggression against Iraq and a breach of the conditions under which American forces operate in their country. Complicated, right? How much of much of that do you think Trump understands?)

The current escalating conflict started with an attack by an Iranian-backed Shiite militia, Kata'ib Hezbollah (part of the Iraqi PMF), on an Iraqi airbase, that killed an Iraqi-American contractor. The US retaliated by attacking several militia bases, reportedly killing 25 Kata'ib Hezbollah members. That might have been disproportionate on our part, but not extremely so. Things might have ended there, but following a funeral in Baghdad for the Kata'ib Hezbollah militiamen killed by the US, an angry mob of dozens of militiamen and their supporters marched to the US Embassy and stormed the outer reception area.

Some background on that embassy attack: It is an understatement to call the US compound in Baghdad an “embassy.” It is more like a walled city within a city. At 104 acres (with much of it underground), it is the largest and most expensive embassy in the world, nearly as large as Vatican City. It cost $750 million to build* and has 5000 people (and has had as many as 16,000 people) working there. That is more than a mere diplomatic outpost. It is like an American small town, inside a fortress, in the middle of the largest city in the largest Arab country.

The “attack” was a mob of a few dozen Iraqis, armed only with stones and improvised Molotov cocktails, who stormed the outer reception area of this vast complex. Iraqi security forces reportedly made no effort to stop them. They threw rocks and trashed the reception area (setting fire to it). But it was not any kind of military attack or attempt to take over the compound - it was an angry protest. From how it has been characterized in the media, you’d think it was a coordinated military attack by Iranian forces. The mob only went about 5 meters into the reception area and never approached within hundreds of meters of the main embassy building. There were no deaths or serious injuries, and after a few hours, they left. I’m sure it was scary for the people in the US compound. But it did not warrant a major military escalation with Iran.

That was a perfect place to leave our escalating tit-for-tat with Iran (at least for this round). It was unarmed Iraqis protesting our killing other Iraqis in Iraq. They shook their fists in anger at us, but no one was hurt. Total casualties in the three incidents: One American contractor, on our side, and 25 Iraqi militiamen, on the other side.

But then Trump decided to radically escalate the conflict. (The embassy attack reportedly reminded him of the US embassy occupation in Tehran under Carter and the Benghazi attack, so he felt he had to look tough. Specifically, he had to look tougher than President Obama, with whom he is irrationally obsessed.) The Trump administration, led by Secretary of State Pompeo initially lied and said the killing of Soleimani was in response to the threat of an “imminent” attack on US interests, but that story quickly fell apart. It was the most “extreme” option given to Trump to retaliate against Iran and had been under consideration for a while. It increased the danger to Americans in the region, it didn’t decrease it.

So let’s look at where things stand now:

• Trump betrayed the Kurds in Syria, ceding Syria to Russia and Iran, and proving us to be an unreliable ally.
• The US-led coalition has suspended operations against ISIS in Iraq, as resources are reassigned to protect our own facilities and personnel.
• The Iraqi parliament voted to expel US (while chanting anti US slogans), solidifying Iranian influence in that country.
• By killing an Iranian national hero, internal pressure on the Iranian regime has eased as the country unites against the Great Satan.
• Iran has announced it will no longer abide by the enrichment restrictions of the JCPOA, further dividing us from our erstwhile allies. (It’s worth noting that Iran is not abandoning the inspections regime and cooperation with IAEA.)
• The populations of both Iran and Iraq have been turned against us.
• No one believes a word Trump and his administration says.

Were these the objectives we hoped to achieve by starting a war with Iran? If not, what are our objectives and have recent actions helped further them? (As Lewis Carroll wrote, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there.”)

My point here isn’t to act as an apologist for Iran or Soleimani. They have been determined adversaries of the US and Israel and have done a lot of bad things. It is to step outside our own tribal bubble and focus on the bigger picture. Even looking narrowly at our own national interests, is this escalating conflict advancing them?

I think you can guess my answer.

-- RD

== DB Notes ==

* The greatest untold travesty, among the countless travesties of the Bush era, was who actually benefited from the US invasions.  The Kurds, sure, a bit, till we betrayed them at Trump's orders. Kuwait for sure. Iran, from delayed demolition of Saddam and us later basically handing them Iraq...

...but the one never discussed was Halliburton, plus Bechtel and other military logistics companies. These are the ones who, on cost-plus contracts, gorged on "emergency" no-bid contracts to build and supply and run the bases etc. Their profit margins were unprecedented across all of human history, vastly greater than say Lockheed or other tranditional military suppliers, who nowadays don't benefit all that much from shooting wars.

The greatest TOLD obscenity committed by the Buishes was committed by Bush Senior (the worst president of the 20th Century) who allowed Saddam to murder a million Iraqi Arabs who were dancing in the streets celebrating their promised liberation from that monster, one of the worst stains on American honor in all of history.

How they get away with this... and how we can thwart them

The fate of America – and the experiment in a Periclean civilization – should not come down to one man.  No, I am not talking about the President, but Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy who, with his eight colleagues, is pondering arguments for tearing down partisan gerrymandering.  

There are intimations that this time, Justice Kennedy may be ready to act against this ongoing rape of democracy. (That anyone could even mouth justifications for such a blatantly heinous and treasonous crime against American citizens should appall any decent mind, whatever their political leanings.) Certainly the plaintiffs have refined their arguments with much better facts and details… and I am told that my own contribution – a potential remedy that is simple, equitable and makes generous allowance for state sovereignty – has been put before one of the plaintiff attorneys. Well… 

… all of that is beside the point. My question is, how could it all teeter on one man? Specifically, what could possibly be going on in the minds of John Roberts and Samuel Alito? 

Unlike their conservative brothers, Gorsuch and Thomas, they weren't chosen in order to be partisan shills. We’re told they are genuine legal scholars whose loyalty to party is secondary. Roberts has even displayed a little independence, and fealty to logic, from time to time. So why is this matter even in doubt?  Can Alito and Roberts actually look in a mirror, siding with this travesty? This crime? Knowing that they'll consign the Republic – eventually – to no recourse other than revolution?

== The warriors resist calls for insane war ==

All the world's despots and fanatics want a U.S.- Iran war:  Trump would get a distraction from his troubles and GOP presidents love ordering troops forward, like pieces in a game. The Mullahs get an excuse to crush their own modernist population. The Saudis and Vladimir Putin get high oil prices and Russia will gain a new, Persian dependency under Kremlin "protection." And others will benefit, too! But not us. Not America or the West or civilization.

Note: under Obama, the U.S. became virtually energy independent. We have no further national interest maintaining a carrier group in that dangerous gulf. Prevent an Iranian bomb? Fine. Then sit back and let demographics seal the mullahs' fate.

And not sane/sober members of the U.S. military, who would be sent to fight it. "The nation’s top military leaders stated unequivocally that they believe the United States should stay in the Iran nuclear deal, staking out a position at odds with President Trump’s only days before he decides whether to certify that Tehran is in compliance with the deal."

God bless the United States Military Officer Corps - who have endorsed remaining in the Iran deal. The final fact-using profession to come under attack from the mad right, who will rue the day. "Deep State" my ass. They are heroes.

== The Union rises: some good news from the front ==

I have been hammering the point that Democrats would be fools to aim all their attention on the clown car craziness in the Executive and Legislative federal branches. At least as important will be races for state assembly and state senate, and the dems must get to recruiting appropriate candidates for those crucial races, right now. Elsewhere I’ve discussed:

(1) Where to find the best candidates for red districts. (And you might know someone appropriate! It is your duty to at least think about who you might help recruit.)

(2) Why gerrymandering reform should focus especially on state legislatures.

 And finally, the good news:

(3) Apparently there actually are some smart folks out there who have noticed. There have been under-reported results. “Of the 27 Republican-held state legislative seats that have come open in 2017 to date, Democrats have now flipped almost 30% of them -- a remarkable number in any circumstance but especially so when you consider the average Trump margin in these seats in 2016 was 19 points.”

“So, why aren't we hearing more about it? Because state legislative races aren't sexy. Because Democrats haven't been able to win one of the more high profile GOP-held House seats in a series of special elections so far this year.” Though in those congressional races Democrats overperformed -- by a large amount -- Hillary Clinton's 2016 showing in these congressional seats.

Want more good news? Despite the extraordinary challenges the world is facing – from growing economic inequality and climate change to mass migration and terrorism – “if you had to choose any moment in history in which to be born, you would choose right now. The world has never been healthier, or wealthier, or better educated or in many ways more tolerant or less violent,” former President Obama said at an event for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Now if you disagree with that assertion, you are welcome to compare statistics. (You’d lose.) But what’s interesting is the emotional response it elicits, from many on the left and almost everyone on the right – fuming rage -- that anyone would dare to say there’s reason for optimism, or that our efforts at reform for 80 years have born a lot of fruit. 

The gloom on the right is understandable – since every media outlet on that side, from Breitbart to Fox to elite “institutes” has a vested interest in destroying American and Western confidence in our open-egalitarian-democratic-entrepreneurial civilization.

But on the left, it is pure craziness – a fetish to save the world only through guilt trips and finger-wagging, never acknowledging that optimistic-confident people are more likely to take on challenges. This is the biggest factor distinguishing pragmatic liberals from ideological “leftists.” Liberals are willing to acknowledge that we’ve come a long way. And that the effectiveness of our past efforts should spur us onward to take on the vast challenges that remain.

== Okay then, a few are trying to get below superficials ==

On the World Post site, there is much wisdom on offer, but with an underlying layer of obstinate blindness: “…former U.S. President Bill Clinton, summed it: “We know from the human genome that all people are 99.5 percent the same. Some people seem to spend 99 percent of their time worrying about the .5 percent that is different. That is a big mistake. We should focus on what we have in common. And focus on what is common. We make better decisions in diverse societies than in homogenous ones. America’s great advantage is that we are an idea, not a place. We are not an ethnicity or a uniform culture.”

Clinton also warned of the dangers of the nativist narrative that has recently arisen: 
“We are playing Russian roulette with our biggest ticket to the future. Even if you believe we are headed toward the first big change since the industrial revolution with robots and digital technology that will kill more jobs than it creates, we are still going to need diversity. We are going to need creative cooperation. To do that we need some fair back and forth with others not like us. Resentment-based divisive politics is a mistake.” But, as the former president sees it, historical experience suggests it will all work out in the end: “This is just the latest chapter in the oldest drama of human history, us vs. them. But sooner or later we mix and move on.” 

All of that is wise and right and good.  But it misses the point about this resurgent confederacy.

Another article asks why Trump keeps on winning. Sure he accomplishes nothing at all, but gridlock and rigor mortis has always been the right’s principal goal. Demonstrating democracy's futility is the core and central aim of Putin's anti-western axis. So long as his opponents are stooopid - using sumo instead of judo - Trump and his master-backers will win.

Example: the inanity of thinking the alt-right is about racism! What stunning nonsense. Yet no liberal or democrat can see that "racism!" is a distraction, a tar-baby, meant to cling and grab all the attention away from the blatant, central confederate theme... hatred of the fact-using, expert castes.

Even the loudest, screeching white supremicist will vary his racism, getting all friendly with any minority reporter who gives him some attention.  I know this. My father, at age 70, drove to the Aryan Nations compound in Idaho and they fell all over themselves to show him around, posing for pictures to run in an ethnic newspaper. Yes, racism is horrifically part of their incantations! But it can vary.

No. What does not vary is their volcanic rage against smartypants. Experts. Name for me one profession of high knowledge and skill that’s not under attack by Fox/Trump &cohorts? Teachers, medical doctors, journalists, civil servants, law professionals, economists, skilled labor, professors… oh, yes and science. Thirty years ago, 40% of US scientists called themselves Republican, now it is 5% and plummeting. They are voting with their feet, the smartest, wisest, most logical and by far the most competitive humans our species ever produced. 

Yes, I said all this above. (I create these blogs sometimes by accretion, and similar rants can accumulate.) But I will reiterate until I see someone else in high place covering this ground!

The FBI and the US military and intelligence officer corps; all are dismissed as "deep state" enemies. Yes, this is not your daddy's conservatism.  When your screeches of hate are directed at every fact-profession... (have your confed uncle name one exception)... and every fact-checking service is automatically "politically biased" then three things are clear. 

(1) This phase of the confederacy is just like the old one. 

(2) If properly roused to awareness, the smart people (the Union side) will win again. 

And

(3) Hence it is vital to distract the smart folks from waking up! Distract them with racism when the real agenda is to discredit every fact-using profession and destroy their ability to thwart the confederacy's new plantation lords.

I keep waiting for some democrat or statesman or leader to make this the real issue, challenging the Murdochians:

“Every time facts and evidence are used to refute your lies, you attack the source as partisan. And so I demand right now that you tell us what kind of a neutral fact-checking service you would accept!  Would you agree to help form a commission of great American sages – including revered Republicans like Sandra Day O’Conner – who could help set up a truly neutral way Americans can confront rumors and lies?

“Not just one fact-service!  We don’t want a ‘Ministry of Truth.’ But a template for several competing but above-reproach services that can say about the worst trash: ‘that’s not true’.  We challenge you to help construct this solution! And if you refuse, we denounce that refusal as treason.”

 == From the Hannah Arendt Center ==

And yes, there are islands of sagacity:

We are experiencing a worldwide rebellion against liberal democracy. In Hungary, Russia, Turkey and other countries across Europe, right- and left-wing parties flirt with authoritarian rule. In the United States, President Donald J. Trump channels the voices of the self-described disenfranchised. Representative governments everywhere are shown to be corrupt, inefficient, and undemocratic. The great political achievement of the modern era - stable representative democracy - is everywhere under attack.

Hannah Arendt knew that democracy is tenuous. In 1970 she famously wrote:

"Representative government is in crisis today, partly because it has lost, in the course of time, all institutions that permitted the citizens' actual participation, and partly because it is now gravely affected by the disease from which the party system suffers: bureaucratization and the two parties' tendency to represent nobody except the party machines." 

Yes, but so?  We recovered from the collapse of American citizen confidence that raged during Vietnam and Watergate. We can surge back from this phase of the Civil War. Rise up.

-->

The coming Iran war--- or perhaps they are not morons, after all

Are we headed toward war?

Russ Daggatt has been reminding us that the next twenty months are fraught with dangers, even as the Administration of George W. Bush settles into a tailspin of lame duck political irrelevance. It is vital to remember that, although despised by 3/4 of the electorate, the President retains several great powers.

For example the authority to grant pardons, which I discuss elsewhere - keeping his henchmen in line with the allure of get-out-of-jail-free cards. That is, unless the democrats decide to get really clever.

Of course, the great presidential power that Bush will find irresistible, as his days wane, is the one that he has used recklessly to make the mess we are in. That of ‘Commander in Chief.’ Daggatt worries, rightfully, that Bush will almost certainly use that power yet again, before leaving office. If for no other reason than it is there.

From all the signs -- some of them blatant -- the swan-song “decider” spasm will manifest in a fierce and sudden military attack upon Iran.

The waters are being tested and prepared. Take the recent piece in OpinionJournal, the online presence of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. It is by long-time editor of Commentary, Norman Podhoretz, generally considered the godfather of today's neoconservative movement. “The Case for Bombing Iran I hope and pray that President Bush will do it. “

Comments Daggatt: I'm not making this stuff up -- these are the guys Bush listens to. And it's not like they are keeping this secret. This is the WALL STREET JOURNAL.

Almost every paragraph has a factual error or some bizarre assertion -- I'm not even going to begin to try to refute them all.

(E.g., It is not true that "schools in England are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils." It is still law in England that the Holocaust must be taught in English schools. This has become a very popular right-wing myth in this country. One unnamed teacher in one unnamed school in Northern England dropped it from one course -- but it was taught in other courses.)

Podhoretz seems to think that Iranians would respond to an attack by the US by overthrowing their own government ("But a bombing campaign would without question set back its nuclear program for years to come, and might even lead to the overthrow of the mullahs ").

Makes perfect sense. The US overthrew a democratically-elected Iranian government in the '50's (Iranians have a long memory about this kind of thing), shot down a Iranian civilian airliner in 1988 killing all 290 aboard, supported Saddam Hussein's war against them, has a couple of hundred thousand troops occupying countries on both sides of them, has it as official policy to overthrow the Iranian government, and is currently holding five Iranian consular officers hostage. But if the US engages in an unprovoked attacked on them, they would respond by overthrowing their own government.

That's what WE would do if attacked, obviously. And, after all, the neocons have pretty much a perfect track record forecasting outcomes of US military adventures in the Middle East. And there is a certain logic to their arguments -- the more we follow their advise, the more dangerous the world becomes, which forms a compelling paranoid case for following more of their advise. (It's like Republican ideology generally -- the more they screw up their management of our government, the more it supports their case that government is a total failure.)

Like other neocons urging an attack on Iran, Podhoretz expresses confidence that Bush will do so ("Accordingly, my guess is that [Bush] intends, within the next 21 months, to order air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers already sitting nearby. " Our only hope is that the neocons are as WRONG about this as they are about everything else they predict.). Seymour Hersh has been writing in The New Yorker about plans for such an attack for months. He anticipates a large number of military resignations if such an attack is actually ordered (the uniformed military may be our last, best hope for averting this disaster -- and we may never even know it, at least at the time).

---
Allow me to comment and offer my own perspectives on this frightening scenario.

First, and yet again, please find for me one commentator who has been saying, longer than I have, that our chief hope must rest upon the skill and loyalty and patriotism and basic sense of the men and women of the US Officer Corps. They are the top victims of this gang. The ones most relentlessly oppressed and harassed and intimidated by a clade of genuine monsters.

As for the rabid neocons. Yes, Podhoretz & co are absolutely loony. When it comes to predicting Iranian actions, they are recapitulating one of the worst mistakes that bad leaders have relentlessly repeated, 4,000 years of statecraft -- assuming smugly that the enemy will react in a way that is DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE to the way that you and I or any normal person would react.

Why do leaders and others do this? If we were attacked by an outside foe, we would rally together courageously, bury our differences and meet the challenge, even if we despise our leaders. It is what human beings nearly always do! Moreover, it is what Iranians have done -- on a lower lever, political scale -- ever since Condi Rice began her loco and insipid "Axis of Evil" campaign of saber-rattling. With the sole palpable effect of driving the moderate Iranian majority into the mullahs' arms.


IS THERE ANY CAUSE FOR HOPE?

All right, Daggatt and I are in agreement about Podhoretz. And we concur that a drumbeat is rising, propelling the fringe 20% of diehard neocons in this country toward declaring war on Iran, on behalf of the other 80% of us. Because - putting it simply - they have a president and we do not.

At risk of belaboring a point that merits endless repeating... to me, the issue is plain. Will the professionals of the intelligence community, the civil service, the foreign service and the United States Officer Corps find a way to do their jobs, at last? Will they, during the next 20 months of danger, protect us from this pack of outrageous lunatics who have hijacked the top three or four tiers of every Executive department of this great nation, filling those layers with graduates of BobJones University and Messiah College? With maniacal third raters who devoutly believe they are doing God's work by pushing us toward Armageddon?

I have ranted endlessly that "this is all about the professionals." Only they can penetrate the cabals, find out the truth, counter-suborn henchmen, and whistle-blow in ways that take away their power to destroy America. Only they can put in place procedures that would SLOW DOWN an attack on Iran, until sane and adult political processes can step in to shelter brave officers who just-say-no.


WHY THE RUSH TO YET ANOTHER WAR?

All right, that's the top agenda and I think we're in basic agreement so far. But...

...but where Russ and I differ is over WHY this is happening. Why the rush toward an attack upon Iran? With nearly all of our land forces already committed to a land war of attrition in Asia, why should we press the accelerator and take on another nation, several times the size of Iraq?

It seems that a great many sincere people are subscribing to a weird notion that Israel is the prime driver. That the Jewish state is fervently chomping on the bit to blow up every nuclear facility between the Jordan and the Indus. Some of our dear friends on the left point to the goggle-eyed, pro-Israel statements made by those on the neocons’ “Book of Revelations wing.” Fanatics who see Israel-centered wars leading to the Big One on the Plains of Meggido - yum..

It's all very elegant and satisfying. And indeed, the most rabid of the fundamentalist Israel supporters do seem to fit this image.

But do the Israelis themselves? Not according to my contacts over there, who universally tell me that there is deep worry about being pushed into war with Iran by an over-eager US administration. (They are also very, very wary of their “dear friends” on the fundamentalist movement, who ALSO yearn for blood to gush from the eyes of every Jew who refuses to convert, when the Battle of Armageddon comes around. DOUBLE yum!)

Look, the Israelis do not have time for delusional games. These people are grownups who have their kids lives on the line. They know that A few bombed reactors will swiftly be replaced by others, financed by the Saudis. Pakistan already has nukes and these may swiftly be put at the disposal of a pan-Islamic Uma, if that widely sought dream ever comes about. (OUR fundies are not the only ones dreaming about a showdown in Megiddo!)

Despite short term hopes of hampering Iranian bomb production, in the intermediate term, Israel is going to have to rely upon deterrence, the same way the US did, threatening enemies with MAD.

In the long term, only peace will save the region from some horrible day. And the Bushites have done nothing to propel that. Zero engagement. Not a finger lifted. Because the their best friends in the region do not want it.

The Israelis know this. And except for their own fringe, nobody on Earth will be more glad to see a new US Administration. One that is run by adults.


THEN WHAT’S THE UNDERLYING REASON?

So, if it ain't Israel, WHY is the Bush Cabal violating every principle of leadership, government, or common sense and preparing to launch yet another war, when our reserves are already committed, our alliances are already in tatters, our social cohesion already ruined, our finances beggared and our nerves already frayed?

We keep on trying to explain Bushite behavior by adding epicycles of stupidity, graft, dogmatism and insanity. These Ptolemaic edifices often collapse -- (for example, if we went to Iraq for oil... where's the damned oil?) -- but always excuses are made and new epicycles inserted so that the gears keep turning to the satisfaction of those who hate these guys.

I do, too!

But maybe it's my union card as an astronomer... and a guy who helped to plan space missions ... that makes me grow weary of constantly filing and shaping and refitting gears in order to maintain a theory that simply does not work anymore!

Because, even though I believe that the Cheneykleps ARE stupid, venial, fanatical and insane, I also know that such people would have, by now, at least by sheer accident, have done ONE thing right! Complete morons would have stumbled into one successful policy, simply by random chance.

Instead, in managing the government of both America and Pax Americana, they have demolished nearly all of our strengths and made the whole world discontented with what had been a complacently-accepted unipolar world..

Their perfect record of mismanagement and destruction of US influence, popularity, power, wealth, cohesion, strength and so on ought to be suspicious! There comes a point when a mature, scientifically-minded person must consider other possibilities. At least for the sake of open-minded exercise.

OF COURSE, I COULD JUST BE MESSING WITH YOU.

I am paid to be interesting, not to be right. Yes, I have a top scoring record for successful predictions. But even more prevalent is a propensity for contrarian “poking.” At whatever notion seems prevalent or too-readily accepted as common “wisdom.”

Perhpas. Perhaps that is what’s going on here, right now, before your eyes.

Perhaps.


THEN AGAIN... PERHAPS THEY ARE NOT MORONS, AFTER ALL

Will anyone, anyone at all, be willing to ponder the simple, "Copernican" alternative explanation for all of this?

If the effect has been to ruin Pax Americana in twenty different ways... will NO ONE even posit the remote possibility that perhaps the universally consistent outcome of all administration practices might have been deliberate, after all?

Does it really take a fiction writer to ponder this “manchurian” thriller-plot, even as a remote possibility?

Try the idea on for size -- even if (like me!) you cannot bring yourself to believe it "officially." Because it certainly does fit the run up to a spasm-war against Iran, perfectly. Because such a spasm attack would:

* instantly unite all Iranians behind their mullahs for a decade.

* end the Sunni-Shia rift, uniting Hezbollah and Hamas and Al Quaeda, joining in common cause against the "crusaders."

* finish off our last shreds of popularity in Europe and anchor rising Russian influence in the Middle East.

* bring to the US Air Force and the US Navy all the joys that have been experienced, in recent years, by the Army and Marines. (While putting THREE CARRIER GROUPS into unnecessary jeopardy in the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf...


Oh, I could go on, but here's the chief point. Stupidity, venality, dogmatism and insanity are insufficient to explain why a leadership clade would deliberately destroy the nation and system they are sworn to defend... and where they keep their money.

If you have a better explanation for the perfection of their record, and for the perfect way that certain groups have always benefited from apparently "stupid" decisions, then come on, out with it! But stop with the boring attempt to explain away such consistency as the product of epicycles of stupidity and coincidence.

The coming Iran War is much more than it seems.

It is proof that we need to finally slice through the epicycles and contemplate a simple, heliocentric explanation for the last six years.

(See also: Stop the IRAN War now…)

Stop the IRAN War now...

To the dismay of many observers, current U.S. strategy towards Iran is shaping up to be a near-repeat of the path that led to the current situation in Iraq. Yet, as Poland's former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Professor Grzegorz W. Kolodko argues, a U.S. attack on Iran would serve only to stymie the potential for a democratic, free-market revolution in the country.

Contemplating (in The Globalist) the possibilities of a “velvet revolution” in Iran -- as someone who lived through similar events -- Kolodko found many of the ingredients already in place.

”In my visits, I have found people to be open-minded, multicultural, pragmatic and looking both towards East and West. They are definitely not hostile to the West in general — or to the United States in particular.”

In fact, according to a recent Gallup poll conducted in 27 mostly Muslim countries, only in Iran have sentiments toward the United States improved. The percentage of people with “unfavorable views” of the United States fell between 2001/2 and 2005/6 from 63% to 52% — while, for instance, it rose from 33% to 62% in Turkey.

At the same time, we all know that Iran is neither an epitome of democracy — nor is it a part of any axis of evil. We would do well to remember that it does have a fine and functioning system of checks and balances, including the right to undertake votes of no-confidence in parliament against the sitting president — something that even the United States cannot claim for itself.

(I don’t know if I would call it “fine and functioning. But Iran does have far more institutions and habits of lawful and accountable civil society than any of our so-called “allies” in the region, by a far cry. Institutions and habits that could function ten times as well the moment the corrupt and oppressive top-theocratic hierarchy were removed. Indeed, I wonder if Iran may be a model of where WE seem to be headed... a future America that still maintains many institutions and processes of an accountable democracy, under the heel of a narrow and corrupt ruling caste. This notion -- that a tyrannical situation need not be uniformly on-off -- is one that we should ponder, whether it is our fate (and Iran’s) to spiral downward into sham-democracy or else shrug off corrupt castes and bring civil society to full vibrancy and life.)

Continuing with the article:

This nation of almost 70 million well-educated people is also a country of robust changes. Few people in the West realize one of the mullahs’ biggest challenges: Two-thirds of the population is too young to remember the triumphant comeback of Ayatollah Khomeini 28 years ago.

Kolodko’s key point is that saber-rattling and “axis-of-evil” rants have only served to delay an inevitable transformation in this country, which is the ONLY one in the middle east where the neocons’ dream (establishing an oasis of democracy in the Middle East) would seem to have a chance of actually coming true. I said all of this at a presentation before the CIA way back in 2002. Alas, at that point, a Nixon-to-China peace offensive to Iran would have been low-risk and potentially a strategic jiu jitsu move of potentially staggering effectiveness.

What do we see instead?

The second worst cliche of strategic thinking is to assume that those who dislike you are automatically evil and stupid. The fact that this has been true for most of American history does not guarantee that it will continue to be so, especially in an era when stupid leadership has dissolved our alliances and eviscerated our popularity, even among friendly nations. In the case of Iran, this cliche tends to make us assume that “Iran” is a monolithic badguy, instead of a land of opportunity for us, diplomatically, socially and commercially, if only the people could be helped to deal with their local bad guys.

The worst cliche of strategic thinking is always this one: “If we smack our opponent hard, across the cheek, he will respond by backing down.”

Um, does anyone recall that this was the exact thinking of the Japanese High Command, when they ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines? Indeed, it is the logic that nearly always draws nations into miscalculated wars... falling for the smug and alluring psychological trap of assuming that your enemy is a bunch of cowards. Above all, never imagine that they might respond to a slap the way you would. By standing taller, with a sense of outrage and patriotic fervor.

The assumption that your (dehumanized) foe will react to force in the exact opposite way that you would is not only stupid, it is cosmically self-indulgent and unsupported by history. We always need to ask - “How would Americans react, if such a strike was aimed at Duluth.” Indeed, how DID we react to the slap of 9/11?

This is a fundamental fact, one that the right wing needs to have crammed down their big, loud craws.

A few dozen pin-prick missile attacks on Iran will not force them to change a single policy. It will cause them to mobilize, as a nation under attack. Exactly the effect it would have upon us. It will turn millions of youths from angry, anti-mullah protestors and liberal reformers into angry recruits for the Revolutionary Guard.

A nation three times the size of Iraq, ethnically united, sophisticated and educated and oil-rich, will thereupon be politically united. United in a central goal of helping to re-forge the Islamic Uma.

Dropping all thought of Sunni-Shiite division, they will fall into line with the real leaders of the Uma movement. And we will have accomplished the chief goal of this administration. Uniting the entire Islamic world as never before.

See also: A Rush to War?