Are we going to war with Iran?

[Briar]

Are we going to war with Iran?

Dan Plesch evaluates the evidence pointing towards a new conflict in the Middle East




The Sunday Telegraph warned last weekend that the UN had a last chance to avert war with Iran and, at a meeting in London last week, the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, expressed his regret that any failure by the UN security council to deal with Iran would damage the security council's relevance, implying that the US would solve the problem on its own.

...


The US army and marines are heavily committed in Iraq, but soldiers could be found if the Bush administration were intent on invasion. Donald Rumsfeld has been reorganising the army to increase front-line forces by a third. More importantly, naval and air force firepower has barely been used in Iraq. Just 120 B52 and stealth bombers could target 5,000 points in Iran with satellite-guided bombs in just one mission. It is for this reason that John Pike of globalsecurity.org thinks that a US attack could come with no warning at all. US action is often portrayed as impossible, not only because of the alleged lack of firepower, but because Iranian facilities are too hard to target. In a strategic logic not lost on Washington, the conclusion then is that if you cannot guarantee to destroy all the alleged weapons, then it must be necessary to remove the regime that wants them, and regime change has been the official policy in Washington for many years.

...

A new war may not be as politically disastrous in Washington as many believe. Scott Ritter, the whistleblowing former UN weapons inspector, points out that few in the Democratic party will stand in the way of the destruction of those who conducted the infamous Tehran embassy siege that ended Jimmy Carter's presidency. Mr Ritter is one of the US analysts, along with Seymour Hersh, who have led the allegations that Washington is going to war with Iran.

For an embattled President Bush, combating the mullahs of Tehran may be a useful means of diverting attention from Iraq and reestablishing control of the Republican party prior to next year's congressional elections. From this perspective, even an escalating conflict would rally the nation behind a war president...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,12858,1594977,00.html

[SunDrop23]

1. Check traprockpeace.org...

If you believe the evidence Scott Ritter presented to the Traprock Peace group, we already are at war with Iran. Check traprockpeace.org for the speech he gave earlier this year. It is very interesting.

[MadisonProgressive]

2. No way

[bemildred]

3. Low level provocation and harassment are ocurring now.

A massive bombing campaign without some sort of nod
from Congress and some sort of real or fanciful casus
belli I don't expect to happen. And flogging the
public into a war frenzy at this point in the Iraq
debacle will not be easily done.