For everyone who insisted, repeatedly, that an Iran attack was imminent

[Occam Bandage]

Poll question: For everyone who insisted, repeatedly, that an Iran attack was imminent

over the previous four years. Note that this is not "possible," it is "imminent." If you thought something along the lines of, "there is a danger that we might attack Iran," this poll is not for you. It is for people who at any point declared that the date was set, the wheels were turning, and war was all but inevitable.

[mvd]

1. I think the military was stretched too thin, and..

when Gates was put in, that was the slightly less hawkish part of the party showing influence. But if told to and it was possible, I still think Bush would have.

[Occam Bandage]

4. I believe something along the same lines.

I believe that the hawkish wing of the Republican party made several strong internal pushes for war, but that the situations in Iraq and Iran provided too much of a obstacle for them to convince the majority of the administration that war was possible without becoming disastrous. I don't, however, think that it ever got beyond pushes in boardrooms and at lunches, and discussions between pro-war officials in America and Israel to determine viability.

[wryter2000]

2. Here's what I think

I believed it was possible, but after they floated the trail balloon a few times I became convinced that it was unlikely. Bush does nothing that he can't sell to the public first. Remember privatizing social security? We know he'd dearly love to do that, but the public didn't buy it, and he dropped it.

I think they wanted to do it. I think Cheney still wants it and is p*ss*d that he didn't get his way. But it was clearly a non-starter.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. China wouldn't finance the debt for an Iran war.

My theory.

[Phoonzang]

5. Yeah...we have a brief reprieve but don't think the Iran problem has dissapeared.

Obama says he's determined not to let Iran acquire nuclear weapons. Iran is still trying to enrich Uranium. Even if we don't do anything, Israel will, and we'll get dragged into it. Regardless of the president.

In the near term, I'm more worried about something starting with Pakistan. They don't seem to be able to control what goes on in their own borders, so certain other countries might feel that they should do it for Pakistan.

[Sebastian Doyle]

6. I believe the ONLY reason it was called off is because the Bush Crime Family's own reports said Iran

had absolutely no nuclear capabilities. And even then, the Handful of Paranoid Likud Assholes in Tel Aviv started spinning like crazy to make up an artificial threat. Which was played into with the likes of the Kyl-LIEberman Amendment and (ahem) certain rhetorical speeches by former Presidential candidates.

So they never stopped trying to build an excuse to attack Iran. They just didn't have the manpower to do it.

The relevant question is whether this insanity WILL stop now. And recent appointments make me very nervous about that. :evilfrown:

[cali]

7. The results of this poll are (so far) a riot.

poor, disappointed little crystal ball gazers.

[smoogatz]

8. I never thought it was imminent: the truth is that any attack on Iran

would have triggered mass uprisings of the Shi'a in Iraq; they'd have breached the Green Zone in the first few hours and you'd have Americans helicoptering off the rooftops, a la Saigon in 1975. It would also have played havoc with global oil markets, which were already going crazy, and might have resulted in Bush's impeachment. Plus, as an earlier poster said, we don't have the troops for a ground invasion, so any attack would have to have been an air/sea combo, pretty much: a lot of destruction and death, but no guarantee of regime change. It would also have triggered terror attacks on the West, most likely in the U.S. as well. All the wargaming of an invasion of Iran was disastrous for the US; even with relatively limited resources the Iranians could have done significant damage to US naval forces in the Persian Gulf, which is about the size of a bathtub. I actually think, though, that those voices in the media that were screaming about a likely attack--including Sy Hersh--probably helped to prevent it. By exposing the crzies within the Bush administration who were pushing for an attack on Iran, Hersh and others helped to solidify opinion within the military that such an attack would be folly.

[Occam Bandage]

9. All of what you say is true, and is why none but the most delusional

in the administration (and in the blogosphere) ever saw it is a real-world possibility.

[ieoeja]

13. For the record, those were South Vietnamese helicoptering off the roof.

If you ever get a good closeup of the helicopter you will see that it sports the flag of South Vietnam, not the United States. Ditto the helicopter being pushed off the aircraft carrier.

North Vietnam agreed to a 24 hour ceasefire outside Saigon that allowed us to evacuate foreign nationals (not just Americans). Along with the foreigners we took some key South Vietnamese then opened our decks to a general evacuation of South Vietnamese until our ships filled up.

[OnyxCollie]

10. They couldn't come up with a decent Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Remember the captured British sailors? Iran knew they were being baited and Achmedinnerjacket released them as "a gift." The British government encouraged the sailors to go public with their story. The female sailor had said while in custody that they were being used as pawns. She changed her story when she was released. Then there was the threatening speedboats.

After the whole fake-document-from-Niger-to-sell-the-Iraq-war thing, bushco had nothin'.

[Occam Bandage]

12. Wouldn't a Gulf of Tonkin incident, by definition, be a lie?

I mean, if you're proposing that the government invent a casus belli virtually out of whole cloth, would they be limited only by their imaginations?

[OnyxCollie]

14. Well, yeah.

Gulf of Tonkin was inappropriate. I can't think of an example. Maybe I can go over some old "Hogan's Heroes" plots.

[elocs]

11. Just like the prediction of martial law after the election, many DUers are quick to panic

and conspiracies abound. I don't see that ever changing. Simple explanations are too, well, simple for some people.

[Alter Ego]

15. I think they certainly would have done so if given the opportunity, but

their plans were spoiled by the Democrats sweeping to victory in '06 and '08.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

16. You forgot "We did bomb Iran. The MSM covered it up."

[smoogatz]

22. We ran a few probing ops.

That's not the same as bombing in earnest, as only the U.S. can bomb. It's what we're best at, really. If we bomb you, you fucking know you've been bombed. By us.

[alwysdrunk]

17. It was no miracle. It was Iraq.

It was the steady stream of bad news coming from Iraq. It was imminent but they would have been able to justify stretching the military even further while we losing two wars.

[Tom Rinaldo]

18. OK, I didn't vote...

because I didn't fit the criteria you described. I never thought war under Bush against Iran was all but inevitable. I did however believe it was not only possible but likely. No it wasn't a done deal, but I believe that there were forces working through Dick Cheney in particular which were fighting very hard to close that deal. Joe Lieberman was part of that also. The same type of full court propaganda blitze against "the mad man in Iraq" that preceded the U.S. decision to invade Iraq (a decision which preceded the IWR vote which was part of the implementation for that decision in the eyes of those who already decided) was hitting full stride against "the mad man in Iran".

The first set back to the war plans against Iran came when Democrats, against all early expectations, regained majority controll of both the Senate and the House in the 2006 elections. Had Republicans maintained control of Congress in 2006 I think a war with Iran would be a historical fact today. After Deocrats won the 2006 elections, the path to war with Iran became much more complex and ONE of the reasons why it was prevented was the response of the liberal blogosphere to the continuing seriousness of that threat. There are obviously many other important factors that contributed to heading off the launching of an Iran war under George W. Bush. This is something that could have gone either way, and even for those who feel that the odds never favored war with Iran, all can agree that a pound of war prevention equaled far more than any after the fact "cure" for the aftermath of such a conflict errupting we could have together worked to bring about.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

19. I believe that it was ENTIRELY possible

with Bush in charge. I think that it didn't happen because, frankly, the military resources weren't there, the military leadership opposed it, and Gates, to a certain extent (to his credit), as well as Condi, proved to be "moderating influences" in the Bush (mis-)administration. Also, after Bush's first term, most of the hard-core neocons left key (mis-)administration positions and as such did not have the same level of control over policy as they did during the first time. Nonetheless, Bush repeatedly declared that he was the "decider" and he and Cheney both have repeatedly demonstrated that they don't care about public opinion and Congress wouldn't have done anything to them had they launched a military action, so really, all bets were off IMHO. In the final analysis, however, Bush and Cheney either just weren't able to "gin up" enough support among the military, didn't have the resources to carry anything substantial out, or actually sobered up enough to realize that it would just create more unneeded chaos in the ME (although I suspect that that last suggestion is probably highly unlikely)
I don't worry so much about Obama doing anything of the sort without some clearly unproked aggression by Iran or discovery of a REAL "imminent threat" posed by them. I refuse to believe that he's stupid, eager, and/or crazy enough, despite his (and Hillary's) "tough" rhetoric on Iran, to repeat GWB's Iraq clusterfuck and/or create even more problems for our country and our military than we've already got.

[Danger Mouse]

20. I can't vote in this one, but I think that Gates had a big part in preventing war with Iran.

I think he was pushed forward by GHWB to rein in Bush's warmongering.

[apocalypsehow]

21. I recall getting flamed to cinders after suggesting that an imminent attack might not be in the bag

after all, what with a fiasco raging in Iraq and the operation in Afghanistan falling apart right in front of the entire world's eyes.

I lost track of the number of ways - and times - I was called a "freeper."