This Dog Won't Wag

[dogday]

Put aside completely the merits of starting a war with Iran, which is easy to do since there are none. Does the White House really believe that it can help itself politically by doing this? Do the people who have alienated this country and decimated another actually think that they can get away with this -- that the natural order would assert itself, and that the people would respond in the usual rallying way if the president went on prime-time television to announce the commencement of air strikes?

The two most recent polls I found on the question suggest a resounding no. There's a CNN poll from nearly a month ago that asks people about "military action" against Iran; 26 percent said they would favor it, and 68 percent said they'd oppose. There's also a more recent CBS survey that asked people to choose among "military action now," "diplomacy now," and "not a threat." Just 21 percent supported military action, while 57 percent backed diplomacy and 14 percent said Iran was not a threat (they're wrong, I think).

A population so disposed won't easily be flipped, especially by an administration with this track record. And it's numbers like these that have made me a skeptic on the Iran question. Any White House knows that you can't launch a war with numbers like that.

Indeed, this very White House faced skepticism about Iraq in early and mid 2002. Then commenced the marketing campaign of which Andy Card so famously spoke after Labor Day 2002: the television appearances, the ominous warnings about mushroom clouds, the Cincinnati speech, and the notorious sixteen words. Public opinion changed. Even this administration knew that it needed 50-percent-plus-one behind it before it could go into Iraq.


http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12456

[Harmonicaman]

1. yes but...

what are the odds that a Gulf Of Tonkin-esque "incident may be considered as a way to bring about the "waverers"

never underestimate the desperation these people face, after all they have done and theres still a distinct lack of rapture

[dogday]

2. That's the thing, people are expecting that

will happen, or this administration will claim an attack of some sort...

[frogcycle]

3. I agree

the level of skepticism is high enough that even if it were real, a provocation at a seemingly convenient time would backfire

[Done]

4. Besides the possibility of an "attack" blamed on Iran...

Shrub could also give a green light for Israel to attack Iran. This leads to an Iranian attack against US forces, or a preemptive US strike in anticipation of an Iranian attack against US forces.