Scary op-ed piece from Truthout.org:
Question: What is the connection between a possible
American attack on Iran and the perjury trial of I. Lewis
Libby?
Answer: Vice President Dick Cheney.
Wariness over a potential American attack on Iran has been
on the rise for months. This wariness became outright fear in
certain circles as last November's midterms approached; the
idea of an Iran assault being used as the "October
Surprise" to change the electoral geometry was bandied
about extensively. No such attack came, but attention has not
wandered far from the possibility since.
Concerns rose again over the last several weeks after
Bush's poorly-received speech justifying the "surge"
of US troops into Iraq. A centerpiece of that speech was his
blunt threat to the government in Tehran about any meddling
with the situation in Baghdad. Astute observers of the Iraq
situation found this threat both odd and disturbing.
On the one hand, it is axiomatic by now that the Shia
majority in Iraq's government is being guided by the Shia
government in Iran. This victory for Iran was made possible by
our invasion and occupation of Iraq, and by our ham-fisted
manufacturing of a shaky Shia-dominated government. The
alliance was almost fated to happen after our invasion, which
makes barking at Tehran today because of our actions these
last few years almost too absurd to comment on. Mr. Bush
gift-wrapped Baghdad for Iran, and quacking about it now is a
useless gesture.
On the other hand, however, we are dealing with an
American government that has allowed wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq to spiral into chaos. The brain-trust surrounding Mr.
Bush had, at virtually every turn, made the exact wrong
decision at every available opportunity. They invaded
Afghanistan, but moved nearly that entire force into Iraq for
the invasion and occupation there, thus allowing the Taliban
to regain control again. They invaded Iraq - itself a
calamitous decision - with a small force that was not prepared
to fight a years-long urban warfare conflict that has
transmogrified into a vicious sectarian civil war.
This list goes on, and is almost entirely comprised of
decisions made with mean considerations of domestic politics
in mind. To dismiss out of hand the idea that these same
people might embark upon an equally foolish course against
Iran is folly.
The combination of Iranian influence over Iraqi politics,
bombast from the Bush administration, their execrable
decision-making to date, and the fact that a second US carrier
battle group has steamed into the Persian Gulf is disquieting
in and of itself. If you add to this already-volatile mix the
perjury trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the
potential for an explosion increases by orders of magnitude.
Why does Libby's trial matter in this? It matters because
of Dick Cheney.
News reports of the opening statements from both
prosecutors and defense attorneys appear to place Mr. Cheney
at or near the center of the plot to out former CIA agent
Valerie Plame. The defense, in a surprise move, went so far as
to describe Libby as a "scapegoat" for White House
actions against Plame, which were done to silence Iraq critic
Ambassador Joseph Wilson. As this trial proceeds and more
witnesses testify, the trail of evidence could very well lead
to the Vice President's door.
The importance of this possibility lies in the power
wielded by Cheney. Only the most devout Bush-worshippers
continue to believe he is the master of events in the
Executive branch. Everyone else has correctly concluded that
the ideological fuel and bureaucratic muscle in this
administration flows from Cheney.
Though his policy initiatives are greeted with failure
after failure, though the poll numbers continue to wither,
Cheney and the remaining true-believers continue to slog
onward, dragging all of us deeper into the morass. Should the
trial of Libby present a definitive threat to the political
standing and power of Dick Cheney, all bets may be off
regarding Iran. We will be faced with the possibility that an
attack may be ordered for no better reason than to redirect
attention and change the subject.
An attack on Iran would be calamitous on many levels: our
military is already strained to its limits, our forces in Iraq
would be left wide-open to counterattack, the home front would
be susceptible to terror attacks by Iranian special forces,
and the missile batteries arrayed across the Iranian mountains
overlooking the Persian Gulf would wreak devastating havoc on
our fleet.
Sober heads see an attack on Iran as both essentially
baseless and an invitation to a widening war we are not
prepared to fight, thanks to Iraq. Because of this, the idea
that such an attack may be undertaken is not considered a
pressing reality by many analysts. Ali Larijani, Iran's top
national security official, shares this view. "The
possibility of this is very weak, and it's more a matter of
psychological warfare," said Larijani on Thursday.
"The Islamic republic's armed forces are in a state of
complete readiness and are monitoring everything in order to
give a crushing response to even the smallest aggression or
threat." Larijani concluded his remarks by stating,
"I advise Mr. Bush and his advisors to be rational and
think about their own nation's interest."
This would be sage advice if Mr. Bush were the one doing
the thinking. These days, all the thinking and management is
being done by Dick Cheney, and if this Libby trial comes to
pose a danger to his standing, all the sober analysis by
policy experts may turn to dust. Nothing is more dangerous,
after all, than a cornered animal.
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