I couldn't believe it when I read the title. AP, which you can't spell crap without, has finally called the Decider on his war mongering with Iran. Check it out. We've seen all of the tell-tale signs. Accusations of an Iranian plan for dominance in the Middle East, allegations that they are involved in the violence going on in Iraq, and rumors that they are close to getting "nukuylar" weapons. And naturally, there will be only one solution: a military attack to stop this "imminent" threat.
AP notes the similarities to the buildup to the Iraq War:
As then, the Bush administration is making allegations about Iran without providing proof.
It is suggesting Iran is sending weapons to Iraq, yet offering no evidence the supplies can be traced to Tehran. There are whispers, too, that Iranian intelligence agents were behind the recent abduction and execution of five U.S. soldiers.
However, this is not good enough. The Bush administration is yet again feeding sensational and fabricated stories to the media, which then repeats them as if they were fact. Remember the complete lack of questioning by the media of any of the accusations against Iraq? Of course Saddam has WMDs they said, of course he has terrorist ties, so why should we investigate any of the evidence we're being given? It's good that AP is questioning His Royal Majesty George III, but it's not good enough when they continue to repeat verbatim, all of Bush's accusations against Iran as if they were fact. With Ahmadinjad fast becoming a joke in his own country due to his religious fanaticism and neglect of the economy (who does that remind you of?) the last thing we ought to do is turn him into a hero in the Middle East by launching another disastrous invasion.
And then there's Congress. Democrats won an overwhelming victory in the elections, based mostly off of the desire of the American people to put a check on Bush's failed Iraq policy. Yet when Bush defied 89% of the voters and decided to escalate the war, the Democratic response was beyond pitiful. Once they decided on a non-binding resolution, the Decider knew he was still the Decider. And then they couldn't even agree on a resolution and are afraid to even mildly go on the record rebuking the Decision-maker.
War with Iran is a crazy idea and there's no way the public would support it. But that's the same thing we said about the "surge." If we have a president who was able to implement a policy so misguided and so unpopular that 89% of the people were against him, then what is to stop him from implementing another disastrous policy, a real 1% doctrine you might say. Given Congress' weak and ham-handed response to the surge, they probably would be too afraid to really do anything to prevent an invasion of Iran. When the history of this period is written, George W. Bush will be rightly described as the worst president in American history for the invasion of Iraq, which managed to destroy that country and weaken ours in ways that will be felt for decades. But history will also remember the Congress that had the power to stand up and stop him, but did not, out of fear of "public opinion." It's too late to do anything to reverse the damage done by the invasion, but Congress has one last chance to redeem itself: it must pass a resolution forbidding this president to launch war on Iran.