Robert Baer thinks war with Iran may be inevitable

[moodforaday]

...and he reports the Iranians think so, too:

Is a U.S.-Iran War Inevitable? | TIME

You wouldn't be wrong to wonder if Iran hasn't lost its mind seizing the 15 British marines and sailors, and in so doing, handing Bush a casus belli even he couldn't have imagined.

But then again you'd be missing the grim fatalism that has settled over Iran of late, the resigned belief that a war with the U.S. is all but inevitable. This week Iranian diplomats are telling interlocutors that, yes, they realize seizing the Brits could lead to a hot war. But, they point out, it wasn't Iran that started taking hostages — it was the U.S., when it arrested five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Erbil in Northern Iraq on January 11. They are diplomats, the Iranians insist. They were in Erbil with the approval of the Kurds and therefore, they argue, are under the protection of the Vienna Convention.

(...)

Add this to the rest of the bad news coming out of the Gulf, and things look pretty grim. The "surge," despite what some claim, has barely made a dent in the violence in Iraq. Our Arab allies are jumping ship, apparently as fast as they can. At the opening of the Arab summit on Wednesday, Saudi King Abdallah accused the U.S of illegally occupying Iraq. The day before, the leader of the United Arab Emirates sent his foreign minister to Tehran to tell the Iranians he would not allow the U.S. to use UAE soil to attack Iran. That leaves us with Kuwait and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki to face Iran.

I called up an Arab Gulf security official and asked him what he thought about it all. He said the view from his side of the Gulf is that if Iran does not soon release the Brits, a war between the U.S. and Iran is in the cards. "I for one am taking all the cash I can out of my ATM," he said before hanging up.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1604546,00.html

(Robert Baer, ex-CIA, author of "See No Evil"... not my favorite kind of person, having read the book, but he knows what he's talking about. By Baer, see also: "Could a Missing Iranian Spark a War?" http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1601814,00.html )

[saltpoint]

1. I'd enjoy the luxury of thinking Baer's wrong, but with this president

I'm much less confident.

[pretzel4gore]

2. nice distraction...

while the bushevik criminals will do whatever their reptilian peabrains think of, the fact is bush and his goofs are being nutted as we speak-they can inflict all kinds of chaos on the ground, but the pigmedia is hamstrung-no one believes it and they aren't stampeding the population into war fever, w/out which these guys are helpless. So unless they can get traction with foxnews cnn etc, they're just fartin-as-usual. The pigmedia is the real issue-and it's so far out on the limb with junyer that invoking terror of a war with a military power like iran is all they've got to stop the democrats with the chain saws warming up in the background from spraying sawdust all over the place! tim russert is shitting hisself, rush limbah-humbug smells death creeping up on him! treason isn't what it used to be, eh brite hum! notice woof blitzer's in hiding, sorta...tony snows got cancer, he claims...
get it into your heads -these mediawhore guys will face the hangman
:( NOT! :rofl: :) lol

[Old and In the Way]

3. The need for a diversionary war grows as the domestic corruption

and general malfeasance of this administrations continues to get exposed.

The problem will be that even a blitzkrieg air attack is unlikely to change the dynamics of the ground situation in Iraq favorably for US interests. If anything, we'll unite the historical factions of Islam with a new common purpose - ridding themselves of US influence in the ME, once and for all.

I truly think it would be madness for Bush to order up air strikes against Iran...our troops in Iraq could be caught in the vice of an overwhelming Sunni-Shia counter-attack. If our naval forces take a major hit in the Gulf, the projection of US power might be severely damaged. In addition to this, I could see a major economic war start as countries start dumping dollars which would cripple our outsourced econmy.

There's a lot of downside risk to any action against Iran right now. And perhaps that is why Iran is willing to up the stakes....will George bluff and increase the bet to stay in the game or fold? Either way, he's playing with our future.