The source says Bush and Cheney are pro, Gates and Rice are con. From the Jerusalem Post, May 20 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted a senior official in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday.The official claimed that a senior member of the president's entourage, which concluded a trip to Israel last week, said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for.
However, the official continued, "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic, for the time being.
The report stated that according to assessments in Israel, recent turmoil in Lebanon, where Hizbullah de facto established control of the country, was advancing an American attack....
Such an attack will not compensate for the folly of Iraq, but it is necessary, is made necessary because that same folly in Iraq has made more likely the election of a candidate whose naivete, and seeming lack of interest in the meaning of menace of Islam amaze and distrub. I still cannot understand why that candidate has not had the wit to meet with Ayaan Hrisi Ali (she lives in Washington, and grew up quite close to Kenya, even living in Kenya), from whom a good deal might be learned. And such a meeting, were it to have an impact, would not only allay fears, but allow that apparently mediagenic candidate to learn more about Islam than what a dim memory of a father who identified himself (with what significance one hardly knows) as a "Muslim" or a year or two in Indonesia as a child could possibly provide.
Of course Iran, strengthened by so much folly, must now have not its conventional strength -- that threatens only other Muslims -- but its nuclear project, that threatens Infidels, set back, set back for so long that it will give time for those who, after spasms of nationalist fury, will in the end be able to take advantage of the humiliation of the ruling mullahs (who have been responsible for one good thing: brought Islam into such disrepute among the thinking class of Iranians) and take power.
Debka reported earlier this year than Cheney had met with Saudi King Abdullah and told him Bush would attack Iran before the end of his term. Debka gets much of its info from the Mossad. Don't know if this is Israeli propaganda to scare Iran or if it's real. Many trips have been made recently by Gates and Cheney to Middle Eastern staging grounds and now by Bush, so something could be in the works for later this year, maybe around election time. This would be an air campaign to knock out their military and nuclear installations.
Condi and Bob Gates need to prevail on this one. The US shouldn't attack Iran, for one very simple reason: they're not worth it.
Suddenly Hezbollah's control of Lebanon is a reason to worry? It's been twenty-five years already! Was Hezbollah really kept on a leash by by Iran and Syria, or did the three operate as a well-oiled machine? Now they're all trying to reverse the Cedar Revolution. Suddenly it's time to attack Iran? Not in a million years.
It IS time for Europe to step up to the plate. How many European nations are aiding Iran in its nuclear program by providing dual use technology? How many are selling Iran military equipment for conventional forces?
Our military should not be used in the Islamic Republic. We don't need the aggravation of self-righteous countries calling us war criminals and then reaping the bonanza that will come with a free Iran while we struggle to pay off our debts and bury our dead and care for the wounded. The people of Iran don't merit it. They are going to have to live with the consequences of the government they themselves brought to power and that many now claim to hate. Obviously they don't hate it enough to risk their own lives to get rid of it.
Some in our government thought Iraqis would roll out the red carpet. It didn't happen. Do they really think Iran will be any different?
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Shame on George W. Bush if he attacks Iran.
Rice and Gates are standing in his way? President Bush, after seven years in the White House, still hasn't figured out who is in charge.
This is a terrible idea. What needs to happen is what will happen. Mutually assured destruction. If Israel is nuked, the you can guarantee Iran will be obliterated.
I don't care what anyone says, but the Iranian people won't allow their Little Madman to do it.
Color me skeptical. On whose behalf is our President considering this action - the Saudi's or the Israeli's?
If this is in consideration of Israeli independance then it is in our own interests as well.
If it is to control the Persian Shia (rafadite dogs)in the eyes of Saudi (Sunni) interests, they should be paying billions of dollars, up front, simply for consideration.
The plan approved was to do surgical strikes against Al-Qods training camps. Iran has stated more than once that it would destroy any attackers, so the domino's start falling. I wonder if this will be enough chaos to entice Mahdi out of his well?
I don't think attacking before the end of his term means the last day...
PMK:
Condi and Bob Gates need to prevail on this one. The US shouldn't attack Iran, for one very simple reason: they're not worth it.
I disagree. Iraq was a skirmish on the way to Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. If not now, eventually, if we are resolved to win the war of the clash of civilizations, we are obligated to reorganize Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia!
Mutual assured destruction will not stop nukes going off in civilized places. The 100,000 dead each time will be attributed to "militants." Islamic states will plausibly deny responsibility and the Minotaur will get 100,000s of victims at a time instead of its 7 Greeks.
It is ironic that the world leaders of the islamic nations today are its most radical. The biggest lesson of World War II was that one should not ignore what someone says they will do. We ignore conventional shiia (iranian) and wahabi (saudi) beliefs at our own peril. People who think nothing killing infidels using their own children and retarded will think nothing of dispatching 100s of millions of lives as they were instructed to do by their god and its prophet. The leadership of these countries need to be decapitated before they decapitate you!
Machiavelli provides the advice the West needs. He said:
"Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared."
He also said:
"There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others."
He also observed concerning Mohammedan and other prophet led movements:
"Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed."
People who follow the prophet need to be disarmed, especially before they have more nukes!
Bush is 'arranging' it so that whoever follows him will have a hard row to hoe. Also...if he can get a hot war going he may be able to stay in office...
Just call off the election for a national emergency...
"Iraq was a skirmish on the way to Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. If not now, eventually, if we are resolved to win the war of the clash of civilizations, we are obligated to reorganize Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia!"
David,
Perhaps, but not now or on these terms. The world needs to do this. It is not something the US should be expected to do by itself, only to have the Monday morning quarterbacks at the New York Times, the UN, the Capitol, The Hague, Paris and many other places telling us what we did wrong and how criminal we are and how many "innocent civilians" were killed by the evil US military.
What comes next? Sanctions on Iran? After seeing how thoroughly corrupted the UN was with the sanctions and oil-for-food in Iraq, I don't have a warm and fuzzy feeling on that score.
The US cowboy so despised by world leaders of all stripes needs to tell the world to get with the game. We shouldn't fight alone while others sit back and watch. We can't afford it. We will not win the clash of civilizations on those terms. We might fight anyway but that doesn't alter the fact that saving the world from Islam IS NOT OUR JOB!
There must be at least five billion non-Muslims in the world. We are three hundred million. Where are the rest of them?
What's important is that our leaders preserve and protect the Constitution of the UNITED STATES, which is what they have sworn to do. They didn't vow to protect the UN or the people of Iran. They could start by tending to matters much closer to home - like banning all Muslims from entering the US for an indeterminate period, something that should have been done on 9/12/01.
David,
You included this quote:
"Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared."
There's no point in attacking because Bush is not looking to utterly destroy Iran, just as he didn't Iraq. He wants to destroy their nuclear capability and he doesn't think that will give them offense? He dreams of the Iranian people turning against their leadership just as he dreamed of Iraq's welcoming us with flowers. What pipe was he smoking?
He decapitated Iraq's leadership and disbanded its army but the people took offense at our presence ("occupation") and you see where we're at now. Unless we are going in there to totally destroy the country then there is no reason to go in alone. Surgical strikes, which is all Bush has planned, not only won't get the job done - they'll be called illegal wars.
If nukes go off in civilized places and the people of those places think they're just strikes that are not something to start a war over, then those people don't particularly care who rules them, in which case we can leave them to their own devices. If our president, whomever that may be, thinks nukes going off in cities elsewhere in the world thinks it's nothing to lose sleep over then we have a bad president. I expect him to be concerned about what those nukes portend for the US but there's no reason for OUR people to fight for those who won't fight for themselves and who will turn on us at the first available moment.
If nukes go off HERE, I expect our president to take immediate action. Not to respond in kind - Iran can be obliterated without nukes.
As for the civilized places - most of them have been kowtowing to Iran and badmouthing the US the last seven years.
Bet on it not happening!
Bush is 'arranging' it so that whoever follows him will have a hard row to hoe. Also...if he can get a hot war going he may be able to stay in office...
Just call off the election for a national emergency...
Can he do that???
No, he can't.
This is more sound and fury, signifying nothing. War in Iran would break us financially and ruin the military for decades to come. It will take long years to recover from the current campaigns; we can't afford adventurism on the scale of an Iranian invasion.
The time has come to abandon childlike faith in the power of military intervention. Our forces are not made up of supermen; they face human costs that we ignore at our peril. See the exodus of junior officers; read the real-time accounts of the strain of long, repeated deployments. These people can only do so much, and they can only do it so many times.
Bush can hardly wait to leave office..you can see it on his face. I also want him to leave and you might see that on my face. He is wussed out...totally, as the California kids would say. The job of dealing with Iran and Iraq and Islam is going to be another's.
Hey, pismopal! As one Californian to another, I TOTALLY agree...lol! Bush does look bushed, and we shall see if Iran gets what's comin' before GW leaves office. I certainly hope so.
Blah, blah, blah - that's all that comes from this administration, and no real action. But, yes, Cowardeezza Rice and the career jihad aider Robert Gates are, indeed, the worst in it.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.
Ruslan, you've piqued my interest. How has Gates aided jihad?