Despite saber-rattling, and the Washington buzz that a strike is coming, the president doesn’t intend to bomb Iran. Cheney may have other ideas.
By Steven Clemons, SALON
Sept. 19, 2007 | WASHINGTON — During a recent high-powered Washington dinner party attended by 18 people, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft squared off across the table over whether President Bush will bomb Iran.
Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Carter, said he believed Bush’s team had laid a track leading to a single course of action: a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Scowcroft, who was NSA to Presidents Ford and the first Bush, held out hope that the current President Bush would hold fire and not make an already disastrous situation for the U.S. in the Middle East even worse.
The 18 people at the party, including former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, then voted with a show of hands for either Brzezinski’s or Scowcroft’s position. Scowcroft got only two votes, including his own. Everyone else at the table shared Brzezinski’s fear that a U.S. strike against Iran is around the corner.
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Steven Clemens is a punk. I just needed to say that.
It’s an American strike against Iran that these assholes fear, Iran having nuclear weapons presumably doesn’t cause them any fear.
Michael Ledeen does not actually advocate a military strike on Iran, he is in favor of regime change by opposition groups from within.
There is a third option that has a slim possibility given France’s comments about Iran this past week – and that is to form a real coalition (Europe, US, NATO, etc) to put an economic boycott on Iran with teeth – cut off their oil exports and force them to dismantle their terrorist military operations in Iraq and Lebanon and then make it into and concrete condition to have them destroy their own nuclear program.
If the economic stranglehold does little after 6 months, then make sure Iran knows that it will soon be followed by a brutal bombardment of their military and nuclear facilities. An intermediate step might be to show solidarity and determination with a preliminary military strike on Syrian military installations and their highly developed WMD facilities; and a strike on Hezbollah, with the goal to crush the barbarian terrorists once and for all.
I realize that the above comments are naïve and wishful thinking on my part and that we are more likely to see nothing being achieved by the end of the Bush tenure and certainly nothing save retreat in the next Democratic government (they will likely be elected).
The key to Iran’s strength is in Russian hands and the key to winning over the Russians, as stated in the above article, Red October: Russia, Iran and Iraq, is the extent of US hegemony over oil in former Soviet satellite countries. Does the US want to give up control and influence to Russia in return for more control over the Middle East and, therefore, bring Iran under lockdown?