The U.S. is not preparing for war against Iran and Vice President Dick Cheney supports that policy, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says, taking a swipe at a U.N. official who says he's worried about "crazies" who want to start bombing.
So are we getting ready to destroy the mullahs before they get nukes or learn to live with the mullahs and their nukes?
Via Lileks is this blogger who is connecting dots regarding Iran:
Watching the pundits discuss our historic meeting with Iran, you would have mostly heard despair at the notion that we have no leverage in these talks, and so therefor why would Iran give on anything? Why would they stop waging war against us in iraq if they have nothing to fear? To all the experts in the media, the whole thing seemed like some grand puzzlement. Was it just an attempt to appease the administration’s domestic critics who have been chiding it for not engaging in diplomacy ( a vaguery if there ever was one ) with the world’s top terrorist? No one you heard from could really quite grasp what was going on.
For some reason, no one told you that just 5 days before Monday’s talks, an entire floating army, with nearly 20,000 men, comprising the world’s largest naval strike force, led by the USS Nimitz and the USS Stennis, and also comprising the largest U.S. Naval armada in the Persian Gulf since 2003, came floating up unnanounced through the Straight of Hormuz, and rested right on Iran’s back doorstep, guns pointed at them. The demonstration of leverage was clear. And it also came on the exact date of the expiration of the 60 day grace period the U.N. had granted Iran.
And it came just a few weeks after Vice President Dick Cheney had swept through the region and delivered a very clear and pointed message to the Saudi King Abdullah and others: George Bush has unequivocally decided to attack Iran’s nuclear, military and economic infrastructure if they do not abandon their drive for military nuclear capability. Plain and simple. Iran heard the message as well, and although a lack of leverage may seem clear to America’s retired military tv talking heads, it is not so clear to the government in Tehran.
This makes me feel better about my most recent exercises in connecting dots:
If we are finally preparing for an assault on the mullahs in Tony Blair's waning days, these events could paint a picture of impending action. But I've been wrong many times in the past three years about the imminence of actions.Of course, if Iran is also connecting dots and not just numbed to the possibility that we might attack, it makes this announcement make more sense:
Iran has pledged to end years of stonewalling and provide answers on past suspicious activities to the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency probing its atomic program, an official said Friday, in a move being seen as an attempt to avoid new U.N. sanctions.Even if we are getting ready to strike, too many who insist that Iran will negotiate away their nuclear weapons ambitions will take even this slight concession as a reason to convene a full-blown multi-year conference schedule to determine what the Iranians will answer and the schedule of release. With any luck the multi-volume report in French and English complete with affixed wax seals will detail Iran's first successful centrifuge cascade at about the time Iran sets off a nuke in their interior.
Iran is buying time. Too many in the West will sell it cheaply. Have President Bush and Prime Minister Blair decided that we've given away enough time already?
Remember, President Bush doesn't like small ball.
