Crazy Dick Targets Iran - and Us

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 Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

...

The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice, Bob Gates, Michael Hayden and McConnell have sculpted.

According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the "right decision" when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands.

On Tuesday evening, i spoke with a former top national intelligence official in this Bush administration who told me that what I was investigating and planned to report on regarding Cheney and the commentary of his aide was "potentially criminal insubordination" against the President. I don't believe that the White House would take official action against Cheney for this agenda-mongering around Washington -- but I do believe that the White House must either shut Cheney and his team down and give them all garden view offices so that they can spend their days staring out their windows with not much to do or expect some to begin to think that Bush has no control over his Vice President.

It is not that Cheney wants to bomb Iran and Bush doesn't, it is that Cheney is saying that Bush is making a mistake and thus needs to have the choices before him narrowed.

There are a few puzzles in this tale. If true, why is it being leaked? The most obvious possibility is that the military and others who would be caught in Cheney's alleged trap are aiming to abort it. The other puzzle is whether Cheney would really do this on his own, or is this some cover for the President? The obvious action for the President to take to abort such a plan would be to order Cheney's arrest and ask for his impeachment. Should that happen, this pig would fly to see it.

Can we trust Clemon's account? Joe Klein, writing for Time, confirms some aspects of what he calls "Cheney's crazed bellicosity regarding Iran."

having just received a second-source confirmation of the following story, I was intending to post it today:

Last December, as Rumsfeld was leaving, President Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in "The Tank," the secure room in the Pentagon where the Joint Chiefs discuss classified matters of national security. Bush asked the Chiefs about the wisdom of a troop "surge" in Iraq. They were unanimously opposed. Then Bush asked about the possibility of a successful attack on Iran's nuclear capability. He was told that the U.S. could launch a devastating air attack on Iran's government and military, wiping out the Iranian air force, the command and control structure and some of the more obvious nuclear facilities. But the Chiefs were--once again--unanimously opposed to taking that course of action.

Why? Because our intelligence inside Iran is very sketchy. There was no way to be sure that we could take out all of Iran's nuclear facilities. Furthermore, the Chiefs warned, the Iranian response in Iraq and, quite possibly, in terrorist attacks on the U.S. could be devastating. Bush apparently took this advice to heart and went to Plan B--a covert destabilization campaign reported earlier this week by ABC News. If Clemons is right, and I'm pretty sure he is, Cheney is still pushing Plan A.

Let's remember that the point of the Cheney plan is to provoke an Iranian counterattack against American ships and bases in Iraq, as well as possibly the US - he's (allegedly) plotting to get Americans killed to force us to attack Iran. If Cheney is pushing such a plan, he is a traitor, and should be tried. If Israel is party to such a plan, we should do everything possible to frustrate it, including shooting down Israeli planes and cruise missiles engaged in such missions.

One other complication of our ensnarement in Iraq is that now we are more stuck than ever with Israel as a client state. Israel can not act against Iran without our at least tacit approval, and we can't let them act without putting ourselves in the bulls eye for the inevitable response.