I expect that in the very near future, we will find out that Bush is going to bomb Iran. He'll go on tv and tell us that the Iranians refuse to negotiate, there is intelligence that Iran is far along in a nuclear weapons program, and that it is imperative for our national security interests that we stop Iran now.
Douglas Feith (you remember him, right?) has provided an Iranian Chalabi, Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar (infamous in the Iran contra affair) who's been pointing out where in Iran there are nuclear sites, and there's also a mysterious laptop with supposed nuclear plans. (U.S. intelligence considers the documents, which were smuggled out of Iran on a laptop computer by a defector, authentic but cannot prove it.)
We all know the drill. There's evidence. Bush knows. Our own intelligence services say Iran is at least a decade away from nuclear arms, but no doubt they're just naysayers.
So why will we attack Iran?
For the same reason we attacked Iraq.
We heard the same things about Iraq and WMD and dangers to our national security before and it was bunk then, and it's bunk now.
Back in August, 2002, Bush's popularity (which had only risen due to patriotism after 9/11) was waning, and there were many hard questions being asked about his domestic policies, particularly his tax policies. If there's anything Karl Rove knows, it's how to manipulate the media. How then to change the talking points? National security and war, of course. Because if ever there was an issue behind which all of us are supposed to unite, it is war. And national security.
Since we know that the WMD or national security threats were never credible issues, it's easy to see how the war was for politics. Yes, politics. Just think, a ready made reason to force people to either `stand with us or be on the side of the enemy'. How perfect. You could also throw in satisfying the Israeli hawk faction, and of course there was the added bonus of benefitting all those supporters. Forget the tax giveaways, think of the contract giveaways. We're talking billions of dollars. Since no one in the administration ever really cared about success in Iraq, it being a political expediency, there was minimal to zero planning for when the war was `won'. Some photo ops, like that Mission Accomplished sign, but that was about it. Karl's always taken care with the important things.
Later, of course, Bush said the war was to spread democracy, once we knew his other reasons were suspect. How do you spread democracy if you have no plan, and we know that not only didn't they have a plan, they wouldn't let the State Department use its plan. You don't spread democracy by gunpoint. You don't spread democracy by denying the Iraqi's the ability to vote for over a year (when the UN suggested almost immediate elections). We told the UN there was no way to register Iraqi's, and couldn't use their ration cards as suggested. Yet when they finally did vote, it was using those same ration cards. You don't spread democracy by not providing security. No, democracy was never the reason for the invasion.
So why Iran? Why now? It is politics that dictates it. There are a lot of chickens coming home to roost, and it's time to once again manipulate the media, and the agenda. It's time to forget about spying on citizens, time to forget Katrina. Time to forget the failing economy, the destruction of the middle class, rising poverty, failure of NCLB, and the medicare drug plan fizzling.
It's time to change the media agenda, and the talking points. Karl needs a new agenda. And one will be created, and it will once again be for politics.
Yes, Bush will attack Iran.