Gerard Baker suspects that the adminsitration's request to convert B-2s to carry some really big bombs can only mean we need them against Iran:
Nestled deep in George Bush’s latest $190 billion request to Congress for emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a tantalising little item that has received scant attention.
The US Department of Defence has asked for an additional $88 million to modify B2 stealth bombers so that they can carry a 30,000lb bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator (or MOP, in the disarming acronymic vernacular of the military). The MOP is an advanced form of a “bunker buster”, an air-delivered weapon with an explosive capacity to destroy targets deep underground. Explaining the request, the Administration says it is in response to an “urgent operational need from theatre commanders”. What kind of emergency could that be?
First of all, does this mean we've lacked the ability to strike Iran's nuclear infrastructure these last several years? That would be a horrible oversight, if you ask me.
Or is this more psychological warfare?
If this is serious, it will take time to get the B-2 converted to carry the MOP. So will President Bush really open up a war with Iran (even if just the aerial kind) as the presidential campaign goes into full steam? I think not. So how on earth does a president launch a lame-duck war in November and December 2008?
On the assumption that Senator Clinton will win the 2008 presidential election, could the Bush administration cut a deal with Hillary Clinton to stand with President Bush as the President-Elect to announce the beginning of an aerial campaign to defang the mullahs in mid-November 2008? We know the President has briefed Senator Clinton quietly on foreign policy issues.
That would get the bombing out of the way and allow a president Clinton to avoid having to make that decision and enrage her own base. And it would signal the world that stopping Iran from going nuclear was a bipartisan effort.
And perhaps Hillary Clinton would agree to stand with President Bush even if she loses while the president allows the Republican victor to start their presidency without an Iranian atomic bomb looming over him.
I continue to hope that after all this time, our CIA will prove to be an actual asset instead of a waste of money. I hope we can help our friends inside Iran toss the mullahs out on their butts, and that any military force we use will be in support of a military coup or a revolution.
But if the choice is between a war and Iran with nukes, I'll choose a war with Iran. It's an easy choice, since if Iran gets nukes, we'll have that war anyway--but on Iran's timetable.
