Ray McGovern , former CIA analyst, believes that BushCo is priming the pump for war with Iran. I have to agree with him that the rhetoric has become hot and the media spin machine is winding up but there are a couple realities that even Dick and George would have to face, we're seriously bogged down in Iraq and the troops are seriously stretched. We certainly do have naval and air assets available, but in a matter of "conquest" those assets won't do the job.
Iran is 1.7 million sq K, or 3 times the size of France, it is not a little place and it is not all conducive to military movements. Iran is not a recent "colonial" construct, it is a nation of long history and cultural consistency. Persia - Iran - has been around and an empirical player for much of recorded history, this is not a country that would dissolve in the face of military attack. This is particularly true concerning the US which the populace has been raised from childhood to regard as "the Great Satan." None of this is exactly secret information and certainly is well known to the military.
McGovern postulates that the most likely course is air strikes against training camps and widening to the nuclear facilities. There is some reason to think that there would be a reaction to such a thing, and Iran is not without international assets of the nasty sort. I cannot think how an attack on Iran would make the USA a safer place nor act to calm the Middle East.
None of what I have written suggests that in the face of US troops on the ground in Iraq that Iran should be allowed a free hand to take part in attacks on them. It is a different thing to close a border and turn the Iraqi side into a free fire zone, which would be tough on the folks who live and trade nearby, but it also respects the sovereignty of Iran. The Iranian President plays a dangerous rhetorical game, but he is little more than a figure head for the Ayotollas who are apparently a bit more pragmatic. Iran has problems, very real economic problems as well as some social problems regarding repressive theocracy. If the border were closed and seriously enforced the Ayotollas might keep things from spiralling out of control.
It is possible that BushCo is working on scaring the Ayotollas into reining in the Kuds force, I'm not sure that idea would work. The back up for the threats is pretty thin and there is little chance of arousing the populace's discontent with airstrikes. Doing something half-way would almost certainly cement popular opinion with the government.
For a Party that gives great lip service to the long term view, this bunch sure seems enamoured of quick fixes. A modern country is more difficult to repress and open to extra-military action.
McGovern wants us to not just let this thing go, and I agree, having lost confidence in this administration's ability to avoid stupidity, he closes with,
There is very little time to exercise our rights as citizens and stop this madness. At a similarly critical juncture, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was typically direct. I find his words a challenge to us today:
There is such a thing as being too late. ... Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with lost opportunity. ... Over the bleached bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late.'
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