Will the US Go to War With Iran?

Very probably, in a limited way. Opening up a second front with total all-out war with Iran isn’t possible given the current condition of the US military. But in Bush’s speech last Wednesday the saber was definitely rattled.

Why did Bush-41 stop US troops from entering Baghdad back in 1992? It is clear now with 20-20 hindsight, that a toppled Iraqi government would have enabled an Iranian regional hegemony. Iraq kept Iran in check. Now it is in Iran’s selfish interest to maintain the destabilizing conditions in Iraq, and that is just what they are doing.

Addressing this, Bush indicated a widening of the war in this portion of his speech last week:

“Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

More on Iran, our failure in Iraq will embolden Iran.

“The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons”.

And on that it would appear that plans have been afoot since last year to knock over Iran’s nuclear research sites. It has been reported from several angles, but by far the most credible report came from journalist Seymour Hersh who appeared on yesterday’s CNN news program Inside Edition. “

The secret missions in Iran have been authorized in order to prevent similar embarrassment in the event of military action there. The planning for Iran is going ahead even though Iraq is a mess. I think they really think there's a chance to do something in Iran, perhaps by summer, to get the intelligence on the sites. The guys on the inside really want to do this."

And who are these guys on the inside? Hersh says Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the same two neocon nutjobs who helped get us into the present debacle. Why is Bush still listening to these two? I know that when people give me bad advice I tend not to want to go to them for more of the same.

It is finally time for Congress to step up and put a stop to this madness.