Last night I wrote a diary which I really didn't expect to get much attention:
Scott Ritter - "virtual guarantee" of Iran strike
I was heartened that it ended up on the recommended list and got a lot of comments. Today I stumbled across two more indications that the Bush administration is determined to attack Iran before the elections.
The first is the one the title mentions. Over at Think Progress, Bolton: Striking Iran ‘Is Really The Most Prudent Thing To Do’.
Yesterday morning, Fox News interviewed former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton to discuss whether America is close to striking Iranian targets, as new reports indicate the Bush administration is drawing up plans for a "surgical strike." Bolton said that while there are "obviously risks associated" with a strike on Iran, the risks of not doing something are "far higher" at this point.
More:
Bolton — who has previously claimed that the "mullahs in Iran" want a Democratic president in 2008 — responded:
I think they’re dead wrong on this. I think this is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do. Then the ball would be in Iran’s court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.
This dovetails nicely with a story I reported on a few nights ago, United States is drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp.
Hm, looks like somebody is sure planning on bombing an Iranian "training camp" in the near future.
More from this article:
The US military is drawing up plans for a "surgical strike" against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq, western intelligence sources said last week. One source said the Americans were growing increasingly angry at the involvement of the Guards’ special-operations Quds force inside Iraq, training Shi’ite militias and smuggling weapons into the country.
(snip)
"If the situation in Basra goes back to what it was like before, America is likely to blame Iran and carry out a surgical strike on a militant training camp across the border in Khuzestan," said one source, referring to a frontier province.
They acknowledged Iran was unlikely to cease involvement in Iraq and that, however limited a US attack might be, the fighting could escalate.
"The fighting could escalate". No shit sherlock.
By the way Khustan is where most of Iran's oil wells are located. I'm sure that's a coincidence.
Okay, the other screaming hair-on-fire sort of detail is something I can't believe I missed: (Oh yeah, I was extremely busy working and having a life. Imagine that)
Iran dumps U.S. dollar for oil trades
Yes, you read that right. Iran has decided that the dollar is "a worthless piece of paper". And they are now going to conduct all of their oil transactions in currencies other than the dollar. Now let's face it, THAT'S the "threat" from Iran, not their aluminum tube collection.
"The dollar has totally been removed from Iran's oil transactions," Oil Ministry official Hojjatollah Ghanimifard told state-run television Wednesday. "We have agreed with all of our crude oil customers to do our transactions in non-dollar currencies."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the depreciating dollar a "worthless piece of paper" at a rare summit last year in Saudi Arabia attended by state leaders from OPEC countries.
(snip)
Iranian oil officials have said previously that they were shifting oil sales out of the dollar into other currencies, but Ghanimifard indicated Wednesday that all of Iran's oil transactions were now conducted in either the euro or yen.
"In Europe, Iran's oil is sold in euros, but both euros and yen are paid for Iranian crude in Asia," said Ghanimifard.
Iran's central bank has also been reducing its foreign reserves denominated in dollars, motivated by the falling value of the greenback and U.S. attempts to make it difficult for Iran to conduct dollar transactions.
So there you have it. Two more nails in the coffin of peace.
Sit back and grab the popcorn and hope you don't have to buy much gasoline in the future.
UPDATE: Almost forgot a couple of things:
You know, if the Bushies time this right, it's gonna be "Obama who?" and "elections? We're having elections?" Because the "news" media will be all about Our New War and the old War Hero who's gonna deal with this little mess. If you think that's paranoid, I'll refer you to MeteorBlades diary of earlier today, Fox Military Propagandist Promotes Terrorist Murder in which retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney not only expresses a desire to commit terrorist acts within Iran, he sorta lets slip the real motivation behind all this bullshit:
McInerney: And then I would start moving U.S. carrier battle groups into the region, as well as some of our stealth aircraft, just to make sure they understand, don't try to kick off a major insurrection come October and September, October to impact our elections. They are deliberately ratcheting up and we’ve got to counterattack.
Uh, yeah, just who exactly is trying to "impact our elections" with this nonsense? I think we all know the answer to that.