Bush’s Iran War Plans

If you don’t think Bush is planning on bombing Iran, well, then, you’re not paying attention. First, Bush put Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list. Then, on August 28 at the American Legion convention, Bush blew his bellicose bugle.

Calling Iran “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” he enumerated a list of troubles Tehran is making, from funding Hezbollah and Hamas to “sending arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan.” The latter is an odd one, since Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are on record denying that there is evidence that the Iranian government is involved in this.

But as in the propaganda offensive that preceded the Iraq War, Bush doesn’t care whether what he says is true. He just cares that it is effective.
And just as he talked about a smoking gun turning into a mushroom cloud in the Iraq context, he is now bandying about more nuclear nightmares. “Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust,” Bush said.

Iran, however, is several years away from obtaining a nuclear weapon, by the CIA’s own estimation. It is the Bush Administration itself that has contingencies to use nuclear weapons against Iran, according to Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker. And when Iran in late August slowed its uranium enrichment and agreed to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Bush Administration dismissed the progress.

At the American Legion, Bush also denounced Iranian meddling in Iraq. Iran’s leaders, he said, “cannot escape responsibility for aiding attacks against coalition forces and the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Iranian regime must halt these actions,” he said. “And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”

Bush failed to mention that Saudi Arabia, not Iran, is the leading supplier of foreign fighters in Iraq. No, that would not help his case. And it would complicate U.S. ties with the kingdom. So hush, hush about that.
Instead, hype the Iranian threat.

Bush’s language was unmistakable: “Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. . . . We will confront this danger before it is too late.”

He’s got the war plans ready. A recent study by two British arms experts shows the magnitude of the assault that Bush could wage.

“The U.S. has made military preparations to destroy Iran’s WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus, and economic infrastructure within days, if not hours, of President George W. Bush giving the order,” says the report by Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London, and Martin Butcher, the former director of the British American Security Information Council.
“U.S. bombers and long-range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours,” the study says. “Such a strike would take ‘shock and awe’ to a new level.”

The study predicts that this initial wave of airstrikes would not be the end of the assault, however. “The United States would see no benefit in the restraint” of a more modest attack, it says. “Once an air assault on Iran began, it might include . . . an ever increasing target set, moving from nuclear and other WMD facilities, through strikes on conventional military targets to reduce threats to U.S. forces in theater, to the destruction of leadership targets in order to degrade the government’s ability to strike back at the U.S. forces and allies. . . . In short, once a war begins, given the doctrinal and political framework within which the U.S. military operates, the attacks would inevitably escalate.”

And as the study notes, fundamental change in Iran is part of U.S. doctrine, as spelled out in the 2006 U.S. National Security Strategy document. “We face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran,” the blueprint says. “The nuclear issue and other concerns can ultimately be resolved only if the Iranian regime makes the strategic decision to change these policies, open up its political system, and afford freedom to its people. This is the ultimate goal of U.S. policy.”

The British study concludes that even a “successful” U.S. attack on Iran would create grave risks to “humanity in general and to the states of the Middle East.” It would shatter the international order, and “it is unimaginable that it would not cause far greater spurs to anger than already exist in the region.” The outrage “at further unabashed Western militarism is likely to threaten crowns and republics alike.”

It seems unbelievable that Bush would wage another war, given the disaster he has already created in Iraq. But it’s only unbelievable if you assume Bush is sane, rational, and humane. If you consider that he is not in the reality-based community, then he could do just about anything. He’s got Cheney whispering in one ear that he is the only President tough enough to take on the Iranians. And he thinks he’s got God whispering in the other ear that he must rid the world of evil. With that peculiar iPod, Bush is raring to go.

Or consider the twisted kind of rationality that favors an assault on Iran. The neocons are for it, since it would eliminate the chief threat against Israel today. (Interestingly, the Sharon government urged Bush to attack Iran and not Iraq after 9/11, according to Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Colin Powell’s chief of staff.) And Bush may have persuaded himself that military means are the only way to counter the risk of nuclear proliferation. This is disarmament, cowboy style.

Then there’s always oil, since Iran is the fourth-largest oil producer in the world.

What is to prevent Bush from bombing Iran? That is the question we all must ponder. When a President believes he has unchecked power as commander in chief, and when he views the Constitution as a mere piece of paper, and when he considers the Congressional authorization of force after 9/11 granting him the authority to attack any country anywhere in the world whenever he wants to, there doesn’t appear to be much that could stand in his way.

But let me offer a few possibilities.

First, Congress could pass a law that would expressly prohibit Bush from attacking Iran without receiving proper authorization under Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution.

Second, Congress could get serious on impeachment. Representative Dennis Kucinich’s bill to impeach Cheney cites his unwarranted threats against Iran. More members of the House need to sign on, and Representative John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, needs to open hearings on the impeachment of both Bush and Cheney. If the American people were made aware of all the high crimes and misdemeanors they have been committing, the momentum for impeachment would build, and Bush would have less power to go wage another illegal war.

Third, senior military officials could resign in protest ahead of any planned launch of the Iran bombs. A revolt among the brass might awaken the public to the folly that Bush is planning and might rattle the foreign policy establishment.

But above all, it’s up to us, as citizens, to put the heat on our government directly.

Mass protests in the late 1960s made Nixon reluctant to send additional troops to Vietnam and to think twice before using nuclear weapons there.
Even with madmen in the White House, we still have power at our disposal.
We must use it now.