The Next Big Thing: War With Iran?

Iran claims that it's on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. The Bush Administration not only says that it won't allow that to happen but desperately needs to shift the focus of the American people off its disaster in Iraq with midterm elections coming up.

Guess where this is going?

This is what you get for being the world's bullyboy. George W. Bush has taught a very valuable lesson to all the dictators and crackpot heads of state out there.

It's almost a syllogism: Saddam didn't have nukes. Saddam was invaded and overthrown. Therefore, if you don't want to be invaded and overthrown, then you need to get yourself nuclear weapons -- pronto. Because that is the only thing that will keep the United States from invading your country.

In today's Washington Post, Dana Priest has an article that potends a grisly scenario should this country try to interfere in Iran's nuclear program:

"As tensions increase between the United States and Iran, U.S. intelligence and terrorism experts say they believe Iran would respond to U.S. military strikes on its nuclear sites by deploying its intelligence operatives and Hezbollah teams to carry out terrorist attacks worldwide."

Is that so bad? Well, yes it is.

According to the article, "terrorism experts considered Iranian-backed or controlled groups -- namely the country's Ministry of Intelligence and Security operatives, its Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah -- to be better organized, trained and equipped than the al-Qaeda network that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."

And keep in mind that while al-Qaeda got lucky on 9/11 to a certain extent (I don't think they really expected both of the twin towers to collapse), in many ways they didn't do nearly as much damage as they could have. If the planes has struck the towers of the World Trade Center a few hours later in the day the body count would have been far higher. It's been said that the only reason the third plane hit the Pentagon (on a side that was not occupied at the time) was because they couldn't find their real target, which was the White House. And the fourth plane, which was brought down by the terrorists themselves in Pennsylvania (not by courageous passengers as was wrongly reported at the time) might have been headed for a target in Washington as well -- quite possibly the Capitol.

Now imagine the damage that a smarter, better trained and far better financed group than al-Qaeda currently is could do both inside this country and against our interests abroad.

George Bush has implied that he would like many of our troops to be out of Iraq by the end of the year. But he hasn't said where they're going to go.

My guess is (and yes, I know I've said this before) that a well-timed invasion of Iran in August or early September would not only allow him to say that he was keeping the world safe from a potential nuclear catastrophe, but it will allow him to wrap the Republican Party in the America flag just in time for the midterm elections -- and, possibly, make Bush himself impeachment-proof.

Think that's cynical? Keep in mind that Karl Rove once bugged his own office so he could blame it on the Democrats. Under the circumstances I'm probably not being cynical enough.

The article in the Post continues:

"Because Iran's nuclear facilities are scattered around the country, some military specialists doubt a strike could effectively end the program and would require hundreds of strikes beforehand to disable Iran's vast air defenses. They say airstrikes would most likely inflame the Muslim world, alienate reformers within Iran and could serve to unite Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, which have only limited contact currently."

And if you think that the fact this could quite easily blow up in the president's face might dissuade him from a potentially disastrous invasion -- well, then you just don't know this president.

Tom Moran