War Against Iran Is Again Imminent

George Bush will either go to war by the end of next week or not at all, at least until another phony casus belli like the incident involving Iranian speedboats can be contrived and built up into a reason to attack Iran. Tuesday, when this story first aired on the CBS Evening News, they played an audio clip, supposedly broadcast by one of the Iranian sailors, who said, “I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes.” When I heard this, I turned to my sister and said, “In which basement at Langley did they record that. It's so obviously fake." Since then, some sort of story about this trivial non-confrontation has aired on one or more of the mainstream media TV news shows every day. Yesterday, CNN did a story where they quoted the publication the Navy Times, who wrote that the audio transmission was probably the work of a local prankster known as the Fillipino Monkey. By all rights, this story should have gone away by now, but it is like a balloon being inflated at one end while being bled out at the other. Each news story that attempts to keep the story alive also included enough revealing bits of information for an intelligent viewer to see how phony the threat was/is. The CNN report debunked the authenticity of the audio clip but also included two US sailors who’ve been put forward to claim that the Iranian speedboats threw white boxes into the water. Meanwhile, while touring Israel and the middle east, Bush has repeatedly inserted statements about Iran’s threat to the middle east into his speeches. One need only to take one look at these speedboats and their capabilities - the one shown in the photo is unarmed - to see how ludicrous the threat they posed was. Also note the caption accompanying the photo. The Navy claims that the speedboat shown was one that maneuvered near Navy ships, and it is clearly unarmed, yet he caption claims that the five speedboats were armed. The Navy couldn’t even manage to scare up one photo of an armed speedboat, though. Just remember, though, that Bush took the country to war because of WMDs, and they never existed. These speedboats are a step up for Bush. At least they exist.

The President's Iraq Speech

A desperate, dishonest attempt to justify the continuation of our unnecessary, unwarranted invasion and occupation of Iraq. It was painful to listen to even the few snippets of President Bush's speech I tolerated while awaiting the commentary and Democratic responses. It was like watching an exceptionally gory horror film. You cover your eyes, but sneak peeks out of morbid curiosity. The President now conflates the entire war in Iraq with Al Qaeda and fears of another 9/11 because playing the terror card is his last refuge. These are huge lies, of course. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks. Al Qaeda in Iraq represent, at most, 5% of the total number of fighters attacking us in Iraq. I was quite pleased with Sen. Jack Reed's official Democratic response and by that of John Edwards, the first time he's ever really impressed me with anything he's said. The responses from Giuliani, McCain and Mike Huckabee were merely partisan echoes of Bush. Sadly, no amount of analysis or rhetoric, however incisive, will change anything at this point. Congressional Democrats won't even attempt to defund Bush's war, so it continues.

I won't perform a line by line analysis of the speech. Fred Kaplan offers an excellent one at Slate. Nevertheless, Bush's speech was so replete with targets of opportunity that I'll comment on a few portions.

Yet Iraq's national leaders are getting some things done. They're sharing oil revenues with the provinces.

A blatant lie. The Iraqi parliament has yet to pass revenue sharing legislation. Sigh.

A free Iraq will deny al Qaeda a safe haven. A free Iraq will counter the destructive ambitions of Iran.

If we were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened. Al Qaeda could gain new recruits and new sanctuaries. Iran would benefit from the chaos and would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region.

Because you, President Bush, dropped the ball in Afghanistan and Bin Laden escaped while you pursued the invasion in Iraq, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda already enjoy a safe haven in Pakistan under the protection of a resurgent Taliban. Your invasion of Iraq and the subsequent chaos it brought to that country enabled Al Qaeda, who were never a presence in Iraq before, to set up shop there, and our occupation of Iraq validates their anti-American ideology and provides them with their best recruiting tool.

Iraq under Saddam Hussein was the countervailing force to Iran. The Iraqi Shiite majority, with Iranian support, will now probably crush the Sunni minority, leaving Iraq a twin of sorts to Iran. The idea of a free Iraq that opposes Iranian ambitions is as much a delusional fantasy as the rest of your assessments and predictions, Mr. President.