Iran: April 2008 Archives

Iran's testing and probing of our naval defenses in the Persian Gulf continues:

The incident took place in the Gulf, in international waters dozens of miles from the Iranian coast, the US said.

The Iranaian boats withdrew soon after the warning shots were fired.

US officials say the vessel - the Westward Venture - was working for the US Military Sealift Command under a 65-day charter, an official told the BBC.

 the Westward Venture used the correct measures prior to firing the shots: it sounded its horn, and gave the Iranian boats a verbal warning, before firing flares, 50-caliber machine guns and M-16s in the direction of the boats.

Shortly after the incident, a routine inquiry was made of the Westward Venture by Iranian authorities, according to US officials.

What could be the purpose of these low-level provocations?  Several far from mutually-exclusive possibilities:

1) To be nuisances;

2) To see how close they can get without triggering a U.S. response;

3) To wear down our vigilence and nerve, particularly in a presidential election year where the Democrats are guaranteed to win;

4) To trigger a U.S. response that they can then seize upon as "proof" of an American "attack";

5) To do to us as they did the Brits last year if they can get close enough.

Strategically, #4 seems like the direction in which the mullahs are headed.  Which is part & parcel of why I think we should militarily engage the mullahgarchy on our own timetable, rather than passively waiting for them to either attack first or keep poking us in sensitive spots until we are forced to respond on theirs - or, even worse, not respond at all.

That timetable is, of couse, wrapped around the point of no return of Iran's nuclear weapons program.  If we wait until Tehran has nukes, it will be too late, and at least regional Armageddon will be assured; if we're going to destroy the mullahgarchy, we have to move before that point.

That makes this little development, as Artie Johnson used to say, "veeeeeely intelesting...." (via Newsmax Insider):

Reports have surfaced that a laptop computer with significant information on Iran’s covert nuclear program fell into the hands of U.S. intelligence in 2004.

The date is important, since in November 2007 the National Intelligence Estimate declared that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003....

“The notes describe the technical basis for the IAEA’s outstanding questions about the scope and direction of Iran’s alleged nuclear weaponization studies,” ISIS states. “Specifically, it describes some of the information contained on a laptop obtained in Iran by an intelligence operation in 2004, as well as additional information provided by IAEA member states to the IAEA more recently.

“The information presented . . . describes several aspects of what could be nuclear weapons development.”

That information includes instructions on how to communicate within the Iranian program using only first names, and a reference to the “timing of firing devices leading to an explosion at an altitude of about six hundred meters [~1,968'].”

Heinonen said at the briefing that “this altitude excludes the hypothesis of conventional explosives as well as chemical or biological charges,” according to the ISIS report.

The IAEA’s evaluation of Iran’s “Tests of High Power Explosives” is “unambiguous,” Gabriel Schoenfeld writes in his Connecting the Dots blog for Commentary Magazine:

• “The high-tension firing systems and multiple EBW [Electrical Bridge Wire] detonators fired simultaneously are key components of nuclear weapons."
• “There are a limited number of non-nuclear applications."
• “The elements available to the Agency are not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon."
• “The Agency does not have sufficient information at this stage to conclude whether the allegations are groundless or the data fabricated.”

This was, just to reiterate, a year after last fall's bogus, Bushophobic, flagrantly irresponsible NIE claimed Iran had "halted" it's nuclear weapons development.  And, just recently, it emerged that Tehran has doubled its operating weapons-grade nuclear fuel-generating centrifuge inventory to over six thousand from where they were just last November.

The proverbial Rubicon is just four months away, gentlebeings.  We have that long to liberate Iran and bring the "war on terror" to a victorious conclusion.  Otherwise victory will only be possible at a cost the American people are highly unlikely to be willing to pay.

Sick Willie's Middle East herder of Jews into Arab cattle-cars on Iranian nuclear imminency:

The U.S. and its allies probably have no more than a year to take action against Iran before that nation acquires nuclear weapons, warns Dennis Ross, an architect of the Mideast peace process.

By 2009, Iran “could be a nuclear power, if not a nuclear weapon state, said Ross, who served as the director for policy planning in the State Department under President George H.W. Bush and special Middle East envoy under President Bill Clinton.

If not stopped by next year, Iran will have “crossed the threshold of stockpiling fissionable material,” Ross said in remarks to Toronto’s Shaarei Shomayim Congregation that were reported by the Canadian Jewish News.

“Once they cross that threshold, we’re going to be in a different ball game. We have to approach this with a high degree or urgency. We’re running out of time.”

Not only did Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vow to “wipe Israel off the map,” but former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami has stated that it would “take only one bomb” to annihilate Israel, Ross told the gathering.

“Is that their intention?” he asked. “Can you ignore what they say?” [emphases added] 

Evidently, the answer in official Washington is, "Yes, we can!"

If only this was a reference to the SecDef's personal life:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believes Iran is "hell bent" on acquiring nuclear weapons, but he warned in strong terms of the consequences of going to war over that.

"Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need and, in fact, I believe it would be disastrous on a number of levels," he said in a speech he was delivering Monday evening at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

Summary: Iran getting nuclear weapons will be a disaster, but we're not going to do what it will take to stop them.  Or, "Bleep the ounce of prevention, we'll wait and pay through the nose for the pound of cure."

And you wonder why I maintain that war with Iran, on their terms, is inevitable.

Secretary Gates' irresolute double-talk wasn't limited to Iran:

Gates also said that if the war in Iraq is not finished on favorable terms the consequences could be dire.

"It is a hard sell to say we must sustain the fight in Iraq right now, and continue to absorb the high financial and human costs of this struggle, in order to avoid an even uglier fight or even greater danger to our country in the future," he said.

But he added that the U.S. experience with Afghanistan — helping the Afghans oust Russian invaders in the 1980s only to abandon the country and see it become a haven for Osama bin Laden's terrorist network — makes it clear to him that a similar approach in Iraq would have similar results.

But....

He called a drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq "inevitable," with the debate mainly over timing.

So which is it?  Are we staying in Iraq (and Afghanistan) with sufficient forces to hold that territory and deny it to al Qaeda (and Iran), or aren't we?  Particularly if we're already as much as declaring that we're going to sit with our collective thumb up our collective ass and let the Iranian mullahgarchy go nuclear?

That leaves only two things left to say: Robert Gates ain't no "Big Dog" Rumsfeld (which was why the Donk Senate confirmed him); and with the outgoing Bush Administration essentially waving the white flag at Tehran on every front, can national security even be a bona fide contested issue in the 2008 campaign?

Color me a skeptic on this one:

Hillary Clinton said that as president she would be willing to use nuclear weapons to “obliterate” Iran if that nation launched a nuclear attack on Israel.

Clinton would warn Iran’s leaders that “their use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States,” Clinton said in an interview with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Monday.

On the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, the Democratic presidential hopeful said American allies in the Middle East were being “intimidated and bullied into submission by Iran.” And she asserted that the U.S. must create a new “security umbrella” to reassure Israel and other allies that they would not be threatened by Iran.

She said she would assure those allies that “if you were the subject of an unprovoked nuclear attack by Iran, the United States, and hopefully our NATO allies, would respond to that.”

Clinton echoed those remarks in an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday, saying: “In the next 10 years, during which [the Iranians] might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.

“That’s a terrible thing to say but … that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic.”

Wow, I'll just bet that interview made KO's day.

Snideness aside (well, not really, but work with me here....), let's take a show of hands: Who can tell me why the substance of Mrs. Clinton's bellicose blustering won't work?

Anybody?  Buehler?  Is this thing on?

Alright, I'll come to the rescue again - but just this once....

1) She's tying a nuclear response to an Iranian nuclear attack against Israel to what is strongly implied as the approval of "our NATO allies".  And her insertion of the modifier "hopefully" suggests her view of how likely such approval would be.

2) Our Middle East allies are being "intimidated and bullied into submission by Iran" in large part because of her, and her opponent's, and her party's insatiable defeatism vis-a-vie Iraq.  C'mon, peeps, does anybody seriously believe that the same woman who calls newly-promoted CENTCOM commander David Petraeus a "liar" when he reports to Congress that the "Surge" strategy is working, the same woman who continues to demand that we abandon Iraq (and Afghanistan would be next), the same woman who advocates still more negotiations and "diplomacy" vis-a-vie the mullahgarchy and its nascent nuclear weapons program, would turn around after having done everything possible to help Tehran get the nukes with which to obliterate Israel and retaliate against the attack they've been saying for years they're going to launch once they get them?  She can't stomach a few thousand "insurgency"-inflicted American casualties but she'll push a button and eradicate millions of Iranians?  Riiiiiight.

3) She presumes that the mullahs are rational players, rather than the crazy theocrats they truly are.  Threaten them with "massive retaliation" and they'll be "deterred" from attacking Israel.  Well, mayhap they would and mayhap they wouldn't, but given the apocalyptic fetish of their current frontman, and what it says about their mentality, I wouldn't bet on a whole lot of rationality coming from down Tehran way.

And to flip over the rationality argument, is it not logical to assume that the Iranians are constructing nuclear weapons for precisely the reasons that they are openly telling us?  To wipe out Israel - and, I might add, bring us, America, "The Great Satan," to our knees?  Adolph Hitler told the world what he planned to do in a memoir, and nobody paid attention - both because he seemed like a kook and because once he had the power to carry out his, well, apocalyptic agenda, nobody wanted to face the possibility that, yes, he really meant it.  Ahmadinejad, his spiritual descendant, is telling us to our collective face that he plans to "wipe Israel off the map," and is feverishly closing in on the means to do so.  He gives every indication of welcoming the idea of igniting a nuclear conflagration, believing that will bring down the "twelfth imam," the Shiite Muslim "messiah."

Bottom line: It is as unlikely that Iran can be deterred from its apocalyptic course as it is that the mullahs would take Senator Clinton's threat seriously.  They've got consistency on their side, a trait that is as foreign to that barracuda as spousal fidelity.

I think Her Nib's frothing is pure triangulation designed to make her sound tough on national security while laying the groundwork for allowing the Iranians to get their nukes, after which invading Iran and toppling the mullahgarchy as we did to Saddam Hussein in Iraq would no longer be a viable option.

And when Tehran does launch their nukes at the Jewish state?  Let's just say even Squishy Olmert will retaliate - or even pre-empt - this attack before the Empress can even drag her fat ass out of bed at 3AM to send the diplomats into "battle" yet again.

UPDATE: Doesn't "We'll obliterate Iran if they nuke Israel" sound an awful lot like when Mr. Bill declared thirteen years ago that North Korea using their nukes would result in "the extinction of their country" - not even a month before he cut a deal with the NoKos to give them more economic aid plus two light water nuclear reactors (that proved invaluable to their nuclear weapons program)? 

Benjamin Netanyahu channels Winston Churchill:

Benjamin Netanyahu, the former and possibly future prime minister of Israel, said the “civilized community of nations” must not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

"This is not merely a local problem, this is a global problem. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons everything we have been talking about will pale in comparison," Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

"Their goals are unlimited. Whatever successes they have had so far, they don't intend to stop. The militant Shiites in Iran are openly boasting that they are racing to develop nuclear weapons with the explicit announced goal of wiping Israel off the face of the map, and of reestablishing the caliphate, of course under militant Iranian rule."

Netanyahu, head of the Likud opposition party, warned that a nuclear-armed Iran will put the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf under their control and could easily bring down governments or fold them into Iran's realm.

Iran's influence in the region is growing, Netanyahu said in comments reported by the Middle East Times....

"I said a year and a half ago that the year is 1938 and Iran is Germany and it's racing to acquire nuclear weapons. If that's the case, were now 1939. There is about two years left before Iran becomes a nuclear power.

"The bottom line is that the army of Iran with nuclear weapons must be stopped.”

The "civilized community of nations" didn't listen to Churchill's "voice in the wilderness," and the result was a global conflict that slaughtered some sixty million people, a tenth of which were Jews.  And that was without nuclear weapons in the hands of the bad guys.  Today's "civilized community of nations" is even deafer - and a lot less civilized as well.

I'll let you fill in the remainder of the equation.  I've got to ponder whether to construct a fallout shelter in my backyard, polish up on my Farsi, or determine the compatibility of skin grafts with prayer rugs.

The storm of Armageddon's warm-up act continues to gather....

***Hezbollah Training in Iran for War

In south Lebanon, where the 2006 summertime war between Israel and militant Shiite Hizbullah was played out, villages are abuzz with talk of another devastating conflict between the two archfoes.

Over the past few weeks, military activity on both sides of the border has contributed to war jitters as both Israel and Hizbullah are seemingly poised to strike.

The Israeli military just wrapped up a nationwide war drill it dubbed "Turning Point II," and Hizbullah appears to have devised new battle plans that include cross-border raids into Israel and has mounted a sweeping recruitment and training drive, even marshaling non-Shiites and former Israeli-allied militiamen into new reservist units.

"The holy fighters are completely focused on the next war, even ignoring families and friends. They are just waiting for the next war," says Jawad, a Hizbullah fighter....

Many recruits are sent to Iran for 45-day advanced training sessions, according to Hizbullah fighters. Jawad says he recently returned from Iran, his second trip in a year, where he was taught how to fire antitank missiles.

"There's a lot of training," he says. "The holy fighters are leaving universities, shops, places of work to go and train."

New tactics are being taught, including how to "seize and hold" positions, a requirement that Hizbullah's guerrilla fighters – traditionally schooled in hit-and-run methods – never needed before. One local commander in south Lebanon said that Hizbullah had fought a defensive war in 2006.

"Next time, we will be on the offensive and it will be a totally different kind of war," he says.

Jawad says that the next war will be "fought more in Israel than in Lebanon," one comment of many from various fighters that suggest Hizbullah is planning commando raids into northern Israel.

Hizbullah admits that its rocket arsenal has increased since 2006 and it has the ability to strike anywhere inside Israel. [emphases added] 

Why is Israel preparing for war, and the Hezbos able to do the same?  Because the Jewish state's principal enemy - Iran - has not been dealth with by the United States.

***Risk of Nuclear Attack on U.S. Rises

Witnesses told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the risk of a nuclear attack on U.S. cities has grown in the past five years due to the spread of nuclear technology and the growth of a global terrorist movement.

The Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs looked at the horrific consequences of a nuclear strike by terrorists, and experts said more could be done to save lives, the Washington Post reported.

"I definitely conclude the threat is greater and is increasing every year with the march of technology," said Cham E. Dallas, director of the Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia.

Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the panel’s chairman, said: "The scenarios we discuss today are so hard for us to contemplate and so emotionally traumatic that it is tempting to push them aside. However, now is the time to have this difficult conversation, to ask the tough questions, then to get answers." [emphasis added] 

Translation: We've got to lay the groundwork for who to blame after we get nuked in the not-too-distant future.

Which nation is terrorist central, hosts al Qaeda, and is within five months of cutting the ribbon on their nuclear warhead assembly line?  Iran.

***Iran and the Campaign

HUGH HEWITT: I’m joined by Michael Rubin, who I think ought to be one of the most featured guests on the television and radio, because Iran ought to be at the center of this election, ought to be at the center of all of our conversations. But unfortunately he’s not, because we’re sleepwalking through this election. Michael Rubin, are you amazed at the lack of conversation about Iran in the political arena? 

MR: I am. A lot of the discussion about Iran is really less about Iran, and more about inside the Beltway politics, which is very, very dangerous, because the Iranian threat is growing, and the nuance is important....  

HH: Does Iran follow our politics to the extent that they believe that John McCain is a menace to them, and they will do what they can to get him elected, do you think? 

MR: They will do what they can to hurt John McCain ahead of the election. 

HH: That’s what I meant, yeah. 

MR: The Iranians are extremely sophisticated.  

HH: And so do you think that means a Tet-like offensive in Baghdad and around as we get close to the election in November? 

MR: I believe that there will be an upsurge in violence for two reasons. One is that, and the second is that while it’s not on the headlines now, there’s supposed to be the provincial elections in October, which will be too tempting a target for the Iranians. It will be coming just a month before the U.S. elections. [emphasis added]

Insidious, no?  Well, it would be if our politics weren't so damnably predictable.  And if this election mattered one jot or tittle.

Hard not to notice that Iran is the common thread running through these three stories.  I don't see anything in them to change my conclusion that war with Iran is inevitable, and the longer we proscrastinate on taking the military initiative against the mullahgarchy ourselves, the more likely we will have to fight them on their terms and their timetable.  See the second story above; a nuclear offensive by Iran in the Middle East against Israel (either directly or using Hezbollah) coupled with a conventional offensive against the Saudis and Gulf states would be topped off nicely from Tehran's point of view by an atomic "event" in the United States (carried out by al Qaeda via the wide-open Mexican border) to cripple us and distract us from acting to stop them.  A nuclear Pearl Harbor, as it were.

Taking as a given that Presidents Rodham, Obama, or McCain would, shall we say, not handle this 3AM phone call with either dry skivvies or "a spine of tempered steel," in Zell Miller's unforgettable phrase, that leaves precisely nine months and two days for President Bush to avert this looming disaster.  Of course, this is the same president who has had just short of five years to carry out this service to all mankind and has squandered it all on diplomatic navel-gazing and digital-rectal impaction.  So what's he going to do?

The signals are mixed.

On the hopeful side, the ol' rumor mill is a-churning:

Contrary to some claims that the Bush Administration will allow diplomacy to handle Iran’s nuclear weapons program, a leading member of America’s Jewish community tells Newsmax that a military strike is not only on the table – but likely.

“Israel is preparing for heavy casualties,” the source said, suggesting that although Israel will not take part in the strike, it is expecting to be the target of Iranian retribution.

“Look at Dick Cheney’s recent trip through the Middle East as preparation for the U.S. attack,” the source said.

Cheney’s hastily arranged nine-day visit to the region, which began on March 16, included stops in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Turkey, and the Palestinian territories....

A number of signs indicate that, contrary to the belief President Bush is a lame duck who will not act before he leaves office, the U.S. is poised to strike before Iran can acquire nuclear weapons and carry out the threat of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to “wipe Israel off the map”:

According to intelligence sources, the Administration now rejects the National Intelligence Estimate report issued in December that asserted Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in late 2003.

The French daily Le Monde reported in March that newly surfaced documents show that Iran has continued developing nuclear weapons. In late 2006, U.S. intelligence reportedly intercepted a phone conversation in Iran’s Defense Ministry in which the nuclear weapons program was discussed.

The [liberal] commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Admiral William Fallon, resigned in March amid media reports that he broke with President Bush’s strategy on Iran and did not want to be in the chain of command when the order comes down from the President to launch a strike on the Islamic Republic.

Democrats suggested he had been forced out because of his candor in opposing Bush’s Iran plans, and Esquire magazine contended that Fallon’s departure signaled that the U.S. is preparing to attack Iran.

According to a Tehran-based Iranian news network, Press TV, Saudi Arabia is taking emergency steps in preparing to counter any “radioactive hazards” that may result from an American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Saudi newspaper Okaz disclosed that the Saudi government has approved nuclear fallout preparations, and the Iranian network reported that the approval came a day after Cheney met with the kingdom’s high-ranking officials, further stating that the U.S. “is now informing its Arab allies of a potential war.”

The American commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, has stepped up criticism of Iran, telling Congress last week that Iranian support for Shiite militias posed the most serious threat to Iraq’s stability. He told senators : “Iran has fueled the violence in a particularly damaging way.” Last week, the U.S. said Iran was providing insurgents with missiles that were killing Americans and hitting targets within the U.S. occupied Green Zone in Baghdad.

MSNBC Commentator Pat Buchanan said Petraeus’ remarks to Congress lay the groundwork for a U.S. attack on Iran.

President Bush said in a speech at the White House on April 10 that Iran, along with al-Qaeda, are “two of the greatest threats to America.”

He said Iran “can live in peace with its neighbors,” or “continue to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups which are terrorizing the Iraqi people … If Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests and our troops and our Iraqi partners.”

He later told ABC News that if Iran continues to help militants in Iraq, “then we’ll deal with them.”

On the not-so-hopeful side, we have these remarks from liberal Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen:

Iran is likely to be the top challenge for the United States over the next five years, the top US military officer said Tuesday, adding that a way should be found to open a dialogue with Tehran.

Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iran "is at the heart of a great deal of discontent and disruption and instability in that part of the world.

"So I have expectations that Iran will remain front and center certainly for at least the next three to five years," he said, responding to questions after a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank here.

Mullen added that all options needed to be kept on the table, but "I am not arguing that that is where the next conflict occurs."

"And I would hope that in the future we could figure out a way to dialogue with them to figure out a way ahead. We've done that in the past with our enemies. We should be able to do that as well," he said. [emphases added]

In the past we did not "dialogue" with our enemies, Admiral; we defeated them.  Either on the battlefield (Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan) or in the arms race (the defunct USSR).  Those enemies that we chose not to defeat (Red China, North Korea) are today rising threats that are, in the NoKos' case, also in cahoots with Adolph Ahmadinejad and the boys on their nuclear weapons project.

So...will the real Bush Administration Iran policy please stand up?  Does this anonymous-but-prominent member of the American Jewish community know something the rest of us don't?  What does "We'll deal with them" mean, exactly?  How?  When?  Is Dubya getting the jump on the Iranian "Tet" strategy?  Are the "dots" set forth above a connectable pattern?  Or does Admiral Mullen speak for the White House whose occupant isn't just a lame duck, but a politically dead one?

All of our enemies - bin Laden, Ahmadinejad, Assad, the Castros, Hugo Chavez, Kim jong-Il, Hu Jintao - have to be absolutely emitting reservoirs of drool at the titillating prospect of the presidential three-left-bean salad ominously and horrifyingly tumbling down the U.S. electoral spillway toward its rendevouz with infamy.  I don't think it at all an exaggeration to say that by virtue of the leadership choices We, The People, have made, post-Bush America is doomed - unless Cowboy George digs his spurs, ten-gallon hat, and pearl-handled Colt-45s out of mothballs, saddles up the ol' unilateralist horse, and comes to the rescue one final time.

The storm clouds are gathering, Mr. President.  This is precisely the situation envisioned in the doctrine you once championed.  Time to put up - before millions in the Middle East and here are shut up permanently.

One of the Empress' slew of recent Pennsylvania campaign ads:

Coupla observations:

1) Was this ad taken from the mothballs of the 2004 presidential campaign that Mrs. Clinton didn't have the ovaries to launch?  Or did the outgoing GOP Congress repeal the Twenty-Second Amendment when nobody was looking?

2) She uses the word "companies" five times in the same sentence, like it was a profanity.  She says she'll stand against "companies" and stand for me.  Doubtless with a "spine of steel" to boot.  But I work for a company.  One that manufactures food, as a matter of fact.  Which, by Hillary's lights, "profiteers" from human hunger.  She doubtless wants to put my company out of business.  But how would that "stand" for me, other than to send me to "stand" in the unemployment line?

~  ~  ~

Barack Hussein Obama on "game-playing":

The "game," of course, not being Billy Tauzin's leaving Congress for a lucrative job in the pharmaceutical industry - that revolving door is more bi-partisan than False Messiah will ever admit - but Obama's own ongoing, flagrantly dishonest claim of "refusing Washington lobbyist money."

Evidently, like all libs, Our Mr. Hussein believes that money is only "dirty" depending upon the partisan affiliation of its recipient.  Not unlike his thousands of dollars of tithes to Trinity United Church:

C'mon, you didn't think La Clinton Nostra was going to let go of Obama's biggest liability, did you?  At least until it's time to put him on Hillary's ticket, anyway.

~  ~  ~

Let us try to close on a note of optimism, even if it is borne of the bowels of paleoparanoia:

Understand that Pat Buchanan is an avowed foe of Operation Iraqi Freedom and any military action against the Iranian mullahgarchy.  That makes the questions he raises here about Iranian incursions intended to destabilize Iraq all the more striking, even if he foolishly persists in compartmentalizing Tehran's proxy war against us in Iraq (and Afghanistan) from their hosting of al Qaeda and the nuclear weapons program that is fast approaching the ribbon-cutting point.  It's all part of the same war, the war the mullahs have been waging against us for thirty years, and which is escalating to the point of undeniability.  Which makes our continued obstinant blindness to it all the more frustrating and alarming.

PJB calls Operation Iranian Freedom "back on the table" as a sounding of the isolationist alarm.  I'd exclaim something along the lines of, "FINALLY!," except that I am unable to believe it.  And even if it were on the level, that'd just mean a bigger retreat and consequent strategic disaster nine months from now.

But at least Iran's nukes would be destroyed.  At this late stage of the "game," even a time-out would be a Godsend.

A tragedy that outcome has already been determined.  Time will tell just how understated that term really is.