CapitalistImperialistPig

Someone, probably Israel, aided by Iranian anti-government militants, has been blowing up Iranian nuclear scientists. Iran seems to have taken offence, and has apparently launched a series of attacks against Israelis abroad. So far, they have fallen far short of the Israeli efficiency and professionalism, but I doubt that we can count on that over the long run. It seems that the American government has distanced itself from the assassinations , which was probably a really good idea, since if Iran starts attacking inside the US, we will have little alternative but to smash them. The Israelis face the fundamental question of "Now what?" It's not beyond credibility that Israeli hardliners pushed the assassination program in order to force Iran to respond and provide a casus belli .

Iran claims to have made arrests in the case of assassinated nuclear scientist. Not sure about the crdibility of the links of the arrested to the assassination, but if they got those responsible, it could get interesting. So far they blame the US, the UK and Israel.

Four Iranian scientists thought to be associated with its nuclear program have been assassinated in the last two years. Iran blames the US and Israel, but at least one observer points the finger at the Israeli Mossad and the MEK , an anti-regime Iranian terrorist organization. I don't know anything about the author, but this sounds plausible to me. The US, after all, is still trying to get Iran to talk, and this sort of terrorism tends to be exactly the opposite in its effects. If Iran were determined to retaliate in kind, it would find Israel a very hard target, but the US, not so much. Just such a scenario, provoking a US war against Iran, is probably exactly what Netanyahu dreams about.

In case we haven't yet had our fill of Asian war, Iran has made a threat that can hardly be less than mortal. A senior Iranian official on Tuesday delivered a sharp threat in response to economic sanctions being readied by the United States, saying his country would retaliate against any crackdown by blocking all oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for transporting about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. The declaration by Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, came as President Obama prepares to sign legislation that, if fully implemented, could substantially reduce Iran’s oil revenue in a bid to deter it from pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Prior to the latest move, the administration had been laying the groundwork to attempt to cut off Iran from global energy markets without raising the price of gasoline or alienating some of Washington’s closest allies. Apparently fearful of the expanded sanctions’ possible impact on the already...

When I first heard of the Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador , my first thought was - hmmm, could this be an Israeli false flag operation? If so, could they really fool our FBI and CIA? How about a joint US-Israel bit of tricksiness? It seems like a long shot, but it still could be convenient. Iran seems likely to be approaching nuclear weapon development, at least if we credit those 4-6 years to a nuke predictions we heard five to seven years ago. Is this a big enough provocation to cause the US to sponsor a bomb, bomb, bomb Iran event? Not if the reaction to date - calls for more sanctions - is an indicator. Consider the proposed targets, however. What does Israel need to attack Iran? One thing they might need is a clear flight path, and the clearest flight path is probably right over Saudi Arabia. Of course they probably also need at least tacit permission from the US. Could this sufficient provocation to produce such permissions? TBD. At the minimum, the US could...

The resignation/forcing out of Admiral Fallon is a very ominous sign that Cheney and the Neocon/Oil/Israel lobby may be back in charge, and spoiling for a fight with Iran. We should have impeached these dumb bastards years ago. We may hope that the lunatics are not fully in charge of the asylum, but the portents are not good.

John C Dvorak is promoting the theory that all those cable cuttings in the Middle East might not just be coincidence. Nobody knows what caused the cut cables in the Mediterranean that interrupted Internet service to parts of the Middle East last week, but there are now conspiracy theories galore written by bloggers and pundits. Some say it will benefit terrorists and Iran somehow. In fact, the cut cables -- originally blamed on ships dragging anchors -- look more like a ploy by some intelligence agency to disrupt Iranian commerce, specifically an emerging oil bourse that the Iranians have been quietly establishing and hoped to roll out fully in the next 60 days. If so, there is no lack of suspects. The US, harassing Iran just to show we can? Israel? The cuttings were at least initially blamed on dragging ship's anchors. If that theory has any credibility whatsoever, it certainly implies that cable cutting is not so tough. This sounds like the kind of information warfare that ...

Josh Marshall has a video of the debate on attacking Iran between arch-neocon Norman Podhoretz and disillusioned neocon Fareed Zakaria. NP's entire argument is "Hitler, Hitler, Hitler." As Josh points out, the comparison is utterly absurd, but neocons seem immune to logic. It's almost an insult to what the world faced in the late 1930s. Germany, industrial powerhouse, with arguably the most powerful army in the world, at the forefront of technology, overawing and invading neighboring countries. Iran, minor economic power, second or third-rate military power, which may get a couple of small nuclear-weapons compared to the couple hundred high-end nuclear warheads in Israel's arsenal (plus, a robust second strike capacity, as Fareed notes) and the many thousands we have -- and our blue water navy, satellites, air force. Please. Time's running out for us? We're going to look back on this fifty years ago and see the non-podhoretz-loons as the Chamberlains of...

NPR this morning: taken to see men who admitted to being paid agent of Iran in Iraq. They had clearly been tortured ("covered with blood, crying, unable to walk") - so what the hell does anything else in the story mean - they said what their interrogators told them to say, end of story. The story, of course, was full of lurid details. Maybe they were true. We don't know, and can't know anything except what their interrogators wanted them to say. At least NPR mentioned the torture bit. The rest of the story should never have been run. I'm ashamed that I sent NPR money.

As widely predicted, the cheerleading for a war against Iran is getting louder. Thomas B Edsall takes a look in this HuffPost article . The drumbeat for a military assault on Iran is getting louder at some conservative think tanks, in the offices of hawks on the Bush and Cheney staffs, and among ground forces in Iraq dealing with weapons and explosives constructed in Iran. Administration calls for aggressive action to destroy Iran's nuclear program, and to cut off its funneling of arms and training to terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East, have featured increasingly tough rhetoric. In his September 13 televised speech, President Bush pointedly warned of the threat from Iran: "If we were to be driven out of Iraq,...Iran would benefit from the chaos and would be encouraged in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons and dominate the region. Extremists could control a key part of the global energy supply." There is unanimous agreement on both sides of the ideologic...

Iran's president Ahmadinejad has proof that the US won't attack Iran. God, and his calculations told him so. "I tell them: 'I am an engineer and I am a master in calculation and tabulation. "I draw up tables. For hours, I write out different hypotheses. I reject, I reason. I reason with planning and I make a conclusion. They cannot make problems for Iran.'" Ahmadinejad has long expressed pride in his academic prowess. He holds a PhD on transport engineering and planning from Tehran's Science and Technology University and is the author several of scientific papers. The deeply religious president said his second reason was: "I believe in what God says." "God says that those who walk in the path of righteousness will be victorious. What reason can you have for believing God will not keep this promise." Two religious nuts getting ready to start the slaughter. Just what we need.

Democrats were elected on a tidal wave of opposition to the war, especially as conducted by GW. They have now been in office for eight months, and what have they done? Zero. Nada. Zilch. Supposedly they were waiting on the Petraeus report, but suddenly the air is full of intimations of surrender. I posted on a couple earlier. There are more here and here . Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq's diverse political factions. And now the Democrats, along with wavering Republicans, will face an advertising blitz from Bush supporters determined to remain on offense. A new pressure group, Freedom's Watch, will unveil a month-long, $15 millio...

Before Bush, I was always one to pooh pooh conspiracy theories. The Bushies ability to transcend irony in self-caricature has made me a believer, though. Cheney is type cast as the sinister sociopath at the core. Gareth Porter, writing in The Huffington Post , has some new slants on Cheney's long time itch for a fight with Iran. Joe Lieberman figures in the story as well, playing the role of the amiable priest with a shiv up his sleeve. I was never one of those who believed the Bush administration was getting ready to attack Iran in 2006 or early 2007. But it is now clear that at least Vice President Dick Cheney is conspiring to push through a specific plan for war with Iran. And Senator Joe Lieberman is an active part of that conspiracy. We have known for a long time that Cheney wants a major air attack on Iranian nuclear sites and other military and economic targets. But an August 9 story published by McClatchy newspapers reveals that, instead of waiting for a decision to go a...

If this Ewen McGaskill and Julian Borger story in the Guardian has it right, impeachment is not only necessary, but urgent. It claims that Cheney has persuaded Bush to attack Iran. Such a course will probably be catastrophic for a generation or more. The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned. The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo." ... The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates. ... "The red li...

It's no secret that the usual neocons are still trying to gin up a war with Iran. Newt Gingrich and his fellow idiots can be found spouting off on the subject nearly every Sunday. Steve Clemons tells a scary story about Vice President Cheney trying to do an end run around the President to start a war: Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously. This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument. The thinking on Che...

It's not quite clear what game Iran is playing with the British prisoners. They may just be trying to negotiate to get back the Iranians captured in Iraq, or maybe Ahmadinejad hopes to prop up his shaky regime with this kind of stunt. On the other hand, he has handed Cheney a knife and yelled "stab me." Perhaps he is gambling that Bush is too wounded to react. What about Britain? Can it project significant power into Iran? Probably not, without US help. There is also the fact that war with Iran would drive oil way up - maybe over $100/bbl. I haven't seen much blogospheric reaction, but I suspect that this is an extremely dangerous moment. I can't believe that either Bush or Blair will tolerate a Carter style hostage situation, but the alternatives are pretty grim - not that discretion has ever been part of Bush's DNA.

Anytime this administration tells us anything, it's a pretty safe bet that you can call Bullshit! Thus it was with Iraq's nukes, mobile chemical weapons labs, weapons of mass destruction, and ties to al Quaeda. Thus it seems to be with most of the data we supply the UN inspectors about Iran's nuclear program. And so too, it now appears , about those sophisticated IEDs that "had to come" from Iran. Paul Kiel has the story at TPM, based on Wall Street Journal and New York Times stories: Two weeks ago, the Bush administration organized an intelligence briefing for journalists in Iraq to demonstrate that Iran was providing weapons to Iraqi insurgents. According to the anonymous briefers, the weapons -- particularly explosively formed penetrators or E.F.P.s -- were manufactured in Iran and provided to insurgents by the Quds Force -- a fact that meant direction for the operation was “coming from the highest levels of the Iranian government.” Well. A raid in southern...

Congress is struggling feebly to control Bush's reckless adventurism, but the challenge of reasonably controlling the commander in chief during warmtime is extremely difficult. Congress is not an institution that can manage anything - that's not its function. The power of a dishonest executive to distort and blame is nearly unlimited, as exemplified by the antics of Rice and Cheney. They can, and should, explicitly prohibit the President from attacking Iran without further approval from Congress. Congress does have one other crucial power, and that is the power to remove the Officers of the Government. Congress should start assembling the evidence that Bush, Cheney, and Rice systematically lied to the American people and the Congress in order to start the war. It is still too soon for impeachment, but the investigation needs to begin, and if the evidence warrants it, articles of impeachment brought. That can only happen with substantial support from Republicans, so the ev...

Americans might take comfort in seeing that we aren't the only nation whose leaders are easily baffled by simple Jedi mind tricks. Of course the fact that that nation is our closest ally in the most dangerous part of the world is not exactly reassuring. via David Kurtz at TPM .

Speak up. We're on the edge of the abyss. So says Josh Marshall , and I agree. All the augeries indicated that Bush is angling for a war with Iran. Never mind that this this makes sense only in the minds of those who think that protecting Israel is more important than protecting the United States - or that even they are clearly deluded. This is the preeminent, really the only question in American politics today: Do we want to go to war with Iran or not? With the escalating chaos in Iraq and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, is it in our interests or not to get into a shooting war with Iran? The debate over the 'surge' of US troops into Baghdad is significant in its own way, but it pales in comparison to this one. I've always viewed the fears that the White House would try expand the war into Iran with a mix of deep skepticism, fascination and latent foreboding. Logically, it makes no sense on any number of counts. But the last half dozen years has taught us ...