Foiled Dreams

Ed Kilgore's note so concerned "that the administration is about to deliberately widen the Iraq war by provoking Tehran and Damascus into armed conflict." After all, "where the hell is the Pentagon going to get the resources for a regional war?" Well, I'd say they'd get them from the Air Force and the Navy, hence the significance of appointing a naval officer to run CENTCOM. Certainly the argument that provoking a military confrontation with Iran isn't going to happen because such a provocation would be a very bad idea in light of the objective constraints on the American military strikes me as unconvincing. Sometimes leaders initiate extremely poor policies. George W. Bush happens to have a history of initiating such policies.

David Sanger at The New York Times, meanwhile, is not in the conspiracy theory business. He notes that while "administration officials say the goal is limited to preventing Iranians from aiding in attacks on American and Iraqi forces inside Iraq." Nevertheless, "in recent interviews and public statements, senior members of the Bush administration have made it clear that their agenda goes significantly further, toward foiling Iran’s dream of emerging as the greatest power in the Middle East." Clearly, I think, for now the hope is that foiling Iran's dreams of regional power can somehow be accomplished by raiding consulates and hoping there are ponies inside. Nevertheless, if the goal is to check Iranian regional power, that means wider war sooner or later.

Comments

Nevertheless, if the goal is to check Iranian regional power, that means wider war sooner or later.

that's about the size of it...
sooner or later...
sooner than later, i reckon...
it will depend on when Israel needs a boost.

Posted by konopelli/wgg | January 15, 2007 10:36 AM

Certainly the argument that provoking a military confrontation with Iran isn't going to happen because such a provocation would be a very bad idea in light of the objective constraints on the American military strikes me as unconvincing. Sometimes leaders initiate extremely poor policies. George W. Bush happens to have a history of initiating such policies.

Ah yes, the "Come on, he can't be that stupid," argument. We can see how well that has served us in the past.

Posted by Sammy | January 15, 2007 10:45 AM

Checking Iran's rise as a regional power is good idea. We could start by not invading its powerful, oil-rich neighboring rival, collapsing it into civil war, and leaving it in the control of an Iran-dominated Shiite theocracy. Oh, whoops...

Posted by FMguru | January 15, 2007 11:17 AM

by the time a good majority of the people in this country realize that UU & the president of vice are the worst things that have ever happened to this country (and the world), it'll be too late to do anything about it

just stating that we loathe these people (bushco et al) isn't enough, we need to immediately remove them from office, now

unfortunatly, my democratic rep (who does not see any basis for impeachment), just got reelected

what's on teevee ??

Posted by tofubo | January 15, 2007 11:21 AM

The only way to stop this madness is impeachment. The worse it gets for Bush, the more likely he'll invade Iran.

Posted by steve ex-expat | January 15, 2007 11:27 AM

A family member in the Air Force, has been posted to Kuwait. Non combat but thing happen.

Posted by DILBERT DOGBERT | January 15, 2007 11:43 AM

"toward foiling Iran’s dream of emerging as the greatest power in the Middle East."

Aren't we aiding and abetting them in their goal by helping the Shiites in Iran?

I honestly don't understand the thinking of the Bush regime. They seem to want their cake and eat it too. They want to prop up the Shiites in Iraq and weaken the Shiites in Iran. They want to crush the Sunnis and Iraq and help the Sunnis in the rest of the region as a buffer against Iran. This all goes against basic human nature. Human nature says Sunnis will help the Sunnis and Shiites will help the Shiites.

Posted by DonB | January 15, 2007 12:04 PM

Based on journalists' interviews with Bush and other administration officials over the past 5-6 years, and a few more recent interviews including those by NBC and CBS, it is clear that George Bush views himself and his presidency in grand, world historical terms. He will not allow himself to be confined by the kinds of prosaic facts about current capabilities that appeal to those in the "reality-based community".

Bush believes that the public and the military are always unwilling to see the true nature of the greatest threats, and are deeply reluctant to respond to them, and that it is thus the role of great national leaders to pull countries into conflicts they need to fight. And Bush and his associates have stated many times their view that the conflict with Islamic Whateverism is the "defining ideological struggle of our time". Cheney made much the same point this weekend, alluding to a long 30-40 year war against the forces of darkness. They mean it. They believe they, and we, have a rendezvous with destiny to defeat the monstrous global spread of the powerful New Caliphate.

My assumption is that Bush therefore thinks that he most do what Franklin Roosevelt did, and create the conditions that force our hands, and pull the public and the military into a fight that they don't want. He is confident that, once the country is in a situation in which it is forced to fight because we are already in a fight from which extrication is unthinkable, Americans will rise to the challenge and commit the full weight and force of US human and economic potential to the conflict. And the more isolated Bush becomes politically, the more he grows convinced of his visionary acumen and the fatal inevitability of his heroic solitude.

Some Americans persuade themselves that Bush would never escalate the current conflict in Iraq into a regional or broader war, simply because we currently don’t seem to have the troops or resources needed. But the United States emerged from a depression to fight World War II, and in fairly short order mobilized the entire country, raised a huge army, and built a war machine that transformed the country into the dominant power in the world for half a century. Don't you think Bush believes we could do that again?

Remember the character Bat Guano in Dr. Strangelove? Guano was a man so confined by his "frame outlook" and conventional views of reality, that he couldn't recognize that something unique was happening, and couldn't grasp the urgency of the situation. That's what Bush and Cheney think of the "reality-based community" with their petty reservations about current troop strengths and budget limits. In the Bush worldview, that community suffers from an impoverished imagination, and is confined within a mental prison of merely convential reality determined by assumed facts of life and limits that don't really exist. The Bushian true believers see themselves as more like Colonel Mandrake, who acutely and resourcefully sizes up the situation, grasps its emergency nature, siezes the initiative, solves the puzzle and (almost) saves the day. (Of course, a lot of us think we're Colonel Mandrake, and that Bush is the mad General Ripper.)

So I think that’s what Bush has planned for us. He plans to start something that we can’t get out of, a situation in which the consequences of failing to fight all-out are so bad, that even the skeptics will be forced to climb on board for the big win in his great cause. Bush looks out over the country and sees a vast untapped army of G.I. Joes and Rosie the Riviters, just waiting for mobilization.

In the NBC interview, Bush indicated that he is looking 80 or 90 years ahead, and is staking his legacy on that imagined future - not what people think of him now. I'm convinced that when Bush looks into the future, he sees his face on a lot of the money. He sees a marble memorial on the mall, with the great Decider staring out with steely and furrowed brow, and pointing the way forward into Destiny. He sees schoolchildren memorizing his speeches. He seems the great Arab and Muslim masses paying him homage as their own Great Emancipator.

I know many people are disposed to find my interpretation of Bush's intentions to be an outlandish. But I believe this is really happening, and stopping it will require more than an objection here, a hearing there and a few negative sound bites from emerging presidential candidates. One thing that is clear is that a lot of congressional Democrats are completely unprepared for how they will respond to significant moves in th direction of full-scale conflict with Iran - and where the choice between a Great War and peace is concerned, they don't even know what side they are on.

Posted by Dan Kervick | January 15, 2007 12:36 PM

Dan, I don't find that interpretation outlandish in the least.

In fact I find it compelling in its explanatory power, completely consistent with what I see and know, and utterly terrifying.

Posted by Ken | January 15, 2007 1:10 PM

Hey, wait just a minute there.....

Posted by Col Bat Guano | January 15, 2007 1:34 PM

Maybe part of the problem is that Bush, Cheney, and Rice continue to see states as the rock-bottom causes and cure of all problems. Just as we supposedly "solved" the problem of Sunni violence (i.e. Al Qaeda) by going after Iraq, the Bush administration has concluded that what we are dealing with in Iraq is not a civil war but rather a problem of Shiite violence which can also be "solved" if we go after Iran. Unfortunately, in my opinion, rather than dealing with the facts on the ground in Iraq, the Bush administration is going to create even bigger problems by going after Iran.

Posted by Patience | January 15, 2007 2:03 PM

Matthew Parris (British Conservative op-ed writer for the Times of London) on US and Iran:

Will I see [the US] as a natural ally? Will I feel sure, as I always have, that America is a force for good in the world? British socialists — the oldest among them, at any rate — may remember British socialism’s long affair with an emerging world power: the Soviet Union. They will recall their early confidence and trust; all of them will remember trying valiantly to find positive interpretations of each new item of news, domestic or international, about the USSR; and some will remember visiting Russia and being able to believe all was well.

Painfully, they will be able to remember, too, their own personal Kronstadt moment. The Kronstadt uprising, put down with extraordinary brutality, opened the eyes of many on this side of the Iron Curtain.

“What was your Kronstadt?” became a code phrase to find the point at which a European socialist or communist tipped from being a Soviet sympathiser.

I am not comparing Guantanamo with Gulag, or America with the Soviet Union — it’s nothing like as bad as that. But if Washington does get us into a war with Iran, that will be my Kronstadt moment.

The whole thing:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1065-2544765,00.html

Posted by otto | January 15, 2007 2:10 PM

Just as we supposedly "solved" the problem of Sunni violence (i.e. Al Qaeda) by going after Iraq, the Bush administration has concluded that what we are dealing with in Iraq is not a civil war but rather a problem of Shiite violence which can also be "solved" if we go after Iran.

That's possibly true Patience. But in my view, the Bush administration has planned to go after Iran from the very beginning, long before there was a problem with Shiite violence in Iraq. My guess is that their only regret is that the right moment for striking Iran did not occur sooner.

Posted by Dan Kervick | January 15, 2007 2:42 PM

Dan, you've put it to words very well. I experience an occasional drifted thought, arising out of the psychological realities you & others have detailed-- hopes that Iran will save US by not taking the bait sure to come from our own government based on those grandiose fantacies and delusions of Bush/Cheney. Can you imagine that?
Aggression towards Iran is even more counterintuitive when you know that the largest part of that population, the youth, are culturally very pro-West.

Posted by Sandbar | January 15, 2007 8:09 PM

Re: Don't you think Bush believes we could do that again?

Do you think Bush would be willing to do what FDR did to mobilize for WWII? Institute conscription, raise taxes and clamp heavy regulations on the economy? And also (a fear FDR did not have), risk having most of the country turn against the GOP for a long, long time? George Bush is not some absolute dictator answerable to no one. Quite the contrary. And I simply cannot imagine the powers behind the throne are willing to risk their domestic cornucopia (which is what the GOP power brokers and puppet-masters really care about, not some sideshow in the Middle East) for the sake of-- what, exactly? The war in Iraq was never more than a distraction, a way of rallying people around the flag so more GOPers could be elected to Congress and the statehouses, taxes could be cut, and corporate friendly programs (e.g., Medicare part D) enacted. The war has ceased to serve this purpose (see: election of 2006) and it is in no one's interest to widen it further when such widening would only make a bad situation (from the POV of the right) much worse and require measures which would basically destroy their domestic agenda.

Posted by Jonf | January 16, 2007 2:52 PM