Robert Parry: "Bush Is Hiding the Ball on Iran"

[Faryn Balyncd]

Bush Is Hiding the Ball on Iran

By Robert Parry


George W. Bush is again guiding the nation toward a preemptive war – this time with Iran – without allowing anything like a full debate of the underlying facts, probable consequences of the conflict or peaceful alternatives.

Bush is following the same course he chose in the run-up to war in Iraq: he insists that war is “last resort” yet puts in motion the engines of war; he times the release of alarming intelligence reports for maximum political effect; he brushes aside doubts and warnings; he then presents war as unavoidable or a fait accompli.............Despite the painful lessons from the Iraq War disaster – including more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers dead and Iraq torn apart by sectarian civil war – the key institutions of Washington, particularly the Congress and the press, are playing similar roles, too.

The capital again is possessed of an air of unreality as the clock ticks down to a likely military showdown with Iran.

Though the documentary record is now clear that Bush set his sights on war in Iraq a year or so before the actual invasion, the President is still believed when he insists now that he wants a diplomatic solution with Iran.............Democratic congressional leaders politely accepted Bush’s new war council – from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the new regional commander Adm. William Fallon – while the only harsh questioning came from pro-war Republican Sen. John McCain to the departing general for Iraq, George Casey, for not making Bush’s Iraq scheme work.............Meanwhile, the Senate has tied itself up for more than three weeks quibbling about the wording of a non-binding resolution of disapproval about Bush’s troop escalation in Iraq. The Senate is finally expected to begin debate next week on compromise language that limits criticism to the narrow issue of the Iraq troop “surge.”...............Washington’s drift on the Iraq resolution rolls on with almost no one pointing at the gathering speed of Bush’s confrontation with Iran................


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Complete article: http://consortiumnews.com/2007/020207.html




Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

[halobeam]

1. this resolution is non binding plus * knows it'll take too long (b/c of red tape)

and has already moved on the surge. The resolution imo is moot. However, they ought to crank it up ten notches re: Iran, before that becomes moot too (or the congress becomes moot, whichever comes first) and they better do THAT yesterday.

[HuffleClaw]

2. very odd

a strange dynamic. cowardly i venture to call it.

[kenny blankenship]

3. Once Bush attacks Iran it will become politically impossible to get out of Iraq

(this is quite apart from considerations on-the-ground in Iraq, which may push us in the other direction, just a reading of the chess game back in washington)
It will be argued that we can't withdraw from Iraq because we need it as a base to "contain" Iran, now that hostilities have broken out. Plus withdrawing from Iraq while we are "conducting operations" against Iran will be "retreating in the face of the Iranian enemy."

If Congress does not wish to be made a fool of and rendered completely irrelevant, impotent in foreign policy and unable to fund their domestic priorities, they had better approach this confrontation with Bush knowing that it will be all-out war, winner take all loser gets nothing, right from the start.

[alfredo]

4. Bushistas say they are not planning war because the

plans are finished, in the can, waiting for orders to be executed.

Neo cons like putting us in positions where we can't back out. Once they got us into Iraq they insist that we can't leave.

[Individualist]

5. K&R