Marching to Persia: First Blows Struck in Bush's War on Iran
Friday, 12 January 2007
*Below is the post that I somehow lost yesterday.*
Hard on the heels of Bush's bellicose language against Iran in his "New Way Forward" speech comes news that American forces stormed an Iranian consulate in Iraq in a heavily armed raid – including five helicopters – with threats to kill the Iranian diplomats inside if they did not surrender.
As Glenn Greenwald notes: "Isn't it a definitive act of war for one country to storm the consulate of another, threaten to kill them if they do not surrender, and then detain six consulate officers?" Glenn – who with his usual dispatch has been all over Bush's rush to encompass Iran in the hellfire of his Middle East rampage – knows full well the answer to his rhetorical question: Yes, it is a definitive act of war.
The raid is just one more in a series of recent actions transparently designed to provoke the Iranians into some violent response that can be used as a "justification" for the Bush Regime's long-desired strike on Iran. Part of this push for a new war has to do with the old Bush-Cheney-PNAC plan of geopolitical empire, which requires the installation of a cowed and compliant government in Tehran; and part of it has to do with what appears to be the Bush Regime's self-delusion that the abominable failure of their assault on Iraq is due not to their own venality, stupidity, brutality and ignorance, but because some dastardly outsider is interfering with their operation, which otherwise would be welcomed with open arms by the grateful Iraqis.
The mindset of the Bush-Cheney faction in this regard is precisely that of a deranged rapist who insists that his victim is actually in love with him and would gladly marry him if only her friends would stop talking him down and telling her that he's no good.
There have been many criminal episodes in the history of the United States government; but I am hard-pressed to think of one that has been so egregiously stupid and self-destructive, and so riddled with pathological aberrations.
I think the Iranians – inheritors of three thousand years of statecraft – will not take the bait. Their Bush-like president – a strutting religious extremist who, left to his own devices, might indeed lash out in response to provocation – is neither the commander of the nation's armed forces nor the ultimate authority in government. But as we have seen in Iraq, in the end Bush is perfectly capable of launching an act of military aggression without any substantive pretext whatsoever. The wily forbearance of the Persians could very well go for naught in the face of this mad stampede toward a new and more horrible war.
Below are some extensive excerpts from Greenwald, but do read the entire piece, for there is much more detail there, along with all his links.
Chris Floyd
*Below is the post that I somehow lost yesterday.*
Hard on the heels of Bush's bellicose language against Iran in his "New Way Forward" speech comes news that American forces stormed an Iranian consulate in Iraq in a heavily armed raid – including five helicopters – with threats to kill the Iranian diplomats inside if they did not surrender.
As Glenn Greenwald notes: "Isn't it a definitive act of war for one country to storm the consulate of another, threaten to kill them if they do not surrender, and then detain six consulate officers?" Glenn – who with his usual dispatch has been all over Bush's rush to encompass Iran in the hellfire of his Middle East rampage – knows full well the answer to his rhetorical question: Yes, it is a definitive act of war.
The raid is just one more in a series of recent actions transparently designed to provoke the Iranians into some violent response that can be used as a "justification" for the Bush Regime's long-desired strike on Iran. Part of this push for a new war has to do with the old Bush-Cheney-PNAC plan of geopolitical empire, which requires the installation of a cowed and compliant government in Tehran; and part of it has to do with what appears to be the Bush Regime's self-delusion that the abominable failure of their assault on Iraq is due not to their own venality, stupidity, brutality and ignorance, but because some dastardly outsider is interfering with their operation, which otherwise would be welcomed with open arms by the grateful Iraqis.
The mindset of the Bush-Cheney faction in this regard is precisely that of a deranged rapist who insists that his victim is actually in love with him and would gladly marry him if only her friends would stop talking him down and telling her that he's no good.
There have been many criminal episodes in the history of the United States government; but I am hard-pressed to think of one that has been so egregiously stupid and self-destructive, and so riddled with pathological aberrations.
I think the Iranians – inheritors of three thousand years of statecraft – will not take the bait. Their Bush-like president – a strutting religious extremist who, left to his own devices, might indeed lash out in response to provocation – is neither the commander of the nation's armed forces nor the ultimate authority in government. But as we have seen in Iraq, in the end Bush is perfectly capable of launching an act of military aggression without any substantive pretext whatsoever. The wily forbearance of the Persians could very well go for naught in the face of this mad stampede toward a new and more horrible war.
Below are some extensive excerpts from Greenwald, but do read the entire piece, for there is much more detail there, along with all his links.
Chris Floyd
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 5:43 PM
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