Gary Hart on War With Iran

by soccerdad

More and more people are seeing the light. I would suspect that many know whats going on but have been waiting to make sure they were right. Anyway, its a perfect follow up to my post yesterday on Iran.

Gary Hart at Huffington Post:

It should come as no surprise if the Bush Administration undertakes a preemptive war againstIran sometime before the November election. Were these more normal times, this would be a stunning possibility, quickly dismissed by thoughtful people as dangerous, unprovoked, and out of keeping with our national character. But we do not live in normal times. And we do not have a government much concerned with our national character. If anything, our current Administration is out to remake our national character into something it has never been.

He then lays out how events leading up to the attack will occur. he then follows with a listing of the expected historic consequences.

These include: violent reaction throughout the Islamic world; a dramatic increase in jihadist attacks in European capitals and the U.S.; radicalization of Islamic youth behind a new generation of jihadist leaders; consolidation of support for Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and a rapidly spreading malignant network; escalating expansion of anti-American sentiment throughout the world, including the democratic world; and the formation of WWIII battle lines between the U.S. and the Arab and Islamic worlds.

He then concludes:

In more rational times, including at the height of the Cold War, bizarre actions such as unilateral, unprovoked, preventive war are dismissed by thoughtful, seasoned, experienced men and women as mad. But those qualities do not characterize our current leadership.

For a divinely guided president who imagines himself to be a latter day Winston Churchill (albeit lacking the ability to formulate intelligent sentences), and who professedly does not care about public opinion at home or abroad, anything is possible, and dwindling days in power may be seen as making the most apocalyptic actions necessary.

My only quibble would be is that I'm an not convinced it has to be in October, it could occur after the elections since the new Congress would not be seated until after the first of the year.

As I wrote on 8/31/06 where I hypothesized that Rumsfeld's speech about the War of Civilizations was meant to be prophetic

Thus, we will then be at a point where all the talk by Bush and Rumsfeld about Islamofascists, clash of Civilizations, and WWIV will appear to have been prophetic. Rallying the populace against the Islamofascists will become easy. They are going for broke and their rhetoric is laying the ground work. They know what's coming and they are framing the context so as to be able to rally support.

Clearly this was never an inevitable path. In fact the neocons and this administration have purposely taken us down this path, risking everything, to further their hegemony. The irony is that at that point invoking Hitler will be appropriate as Bush will take his place among the elite of political warfare such as Hitler and Stalin, slaughtering millions for political gain.

At the risk of appearing to be a paranoid person I am going to ask a question. Think about it. Would an all out attack on Iran be more palatable to the American people if it were preceeded by a terrorist attack on US or its interests?