(This is a repost of something I wrote on my own site today. I mentioned I might do some of that, and figured this wouldn't be a bad place to start. For another Kos diary on it, Scientician would be a good bet.)

Sometimes I hate being right.

But, yeah, I was right.

Here's me, a little less than a month ago:

For those who are unsure, this is how it's going to go down. Policy papers will come out of this, they will all ("reluctantly") justify and advocate war with Iran. Some books will follow from these same people fleshing it out and saying bad things about Iran. That will provide the scholaresque justification that the other right-wing henchthingies need to get on board with their various blogs, journals, and newspaper opinion columns.

Here's George Packer now, quoting Barnett Rubin:

This is an update on the credibly rumoured September "roll out" of the Administration's newest product:  War with Iran.

Last Thursday I diaried this information (thx for the many recs!) from Dr. Barnett R. Rubin, who blogs alongside Juan Cole at the Informed Comment Global Affairs group blog.

I'll stress in advance that Rubin is not claiming war with Iran is imminent, only that the effort to sell this war in a concerted way is.  The war won't start until they believe they have enough support for it (where "enough" is probably a very small number).

This morning Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment alerted me to this story from the group blog he shares with Dr. Barnett R. Rubin, another respectable foreign affairs academic:

Barnett Rubin relays a message from a well-connected friend in Washington on the Cheney Administration's plans to roll out a military confrontation with Iran in September.

The New York Times‘ recent piece on Afghanistan sparked a follow-up at the Informed Comment Global Affairs blog by Barnett Rubin, a well-known expert on Afghanistan. While Rubin mostly praises the Times‘ effort, he argues that they have missed at least two things: the limited accomplishments that came as a result of the UN’s presence in Afghanistan and how the Bush administration’s ideological blinders exacerbated the problems of nation-building following the invasion.

Cross-posted at The Seminal.