*How Crazy Are They?*

By William Rivers Pitt

*How Crazy Are They?*

Thu Apr 20, 2006 19:07

*How Crazy Are They?*
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040906Y.shtml

I had a debate with my boss last night about Sy Hersh's terrifying
New Yorker article describing Bush administration plans to attack Iran, potentially with
nuclear weapons. After reading the Hersh piece, my boss was
understandably worried, describing his reaction to the article in
road-to-Damascus-revelation terms. They're going to do this, he said.

I told my boss that I couldn't believe it was possible the Bush
administration would do this. I ran through all the reasons why an
attack on Iran, especially with any kind of nuclear weaponry, would be
the height of folly.

Iran, unlike Iraq, has a formidable military. They own the high
ground over the Persian Gulf and have deployed missile batteries all
throughout the mountains along the shore. Those missile batteries, I
told him, include the Sunburn missile, which can travel in excess of
Mach 2 and can spoof Aegis radar systems. Every American warship in the
Gulf, including the carrier group currently deployed there, would be
ducks on the pond.

The blowback in Iraq would be immediate and catastrophic, I reminded
him. The Shi'ite majority that enjoys an alliance with Iran would go
indiscriminately crazy and attack anyone and anything flying the stars
and stripes.

Syria, which has inked a mutual defense pact with Iran and is
believed to have significant chemical and biological weapons
capabilities, would get into the game.

China, which has recently established a multi-billion dollar
petroleum relationship with Iran, might step into the fray if it sees
its new oil source at risk.

Russia, which has stapled itself to the idea that Iran's nuclear
ambitions are for peaceful purposes, would likewise get pulled in.

Blair and Britain want nothing to do with an attack on Iran,
Berlusconi appears to have lost his job in Italy, and Spain's Aznar is
already gone. If the Bush administration does this, I told my boss,
they'd instantly find themselves in a cold and lonely place.

The nuclear option, I told my boss, brings even more nightmarish
possibilities. The reaction to an attack on Iran with conventional
weapons would be bad enough. If we drop a nuke, that reaction will be
worse by orders of magnitude and puts on the table the ultimate
nightmare scenario: a region-wide conflagration that would reach all the
way to Pakistan, where Pervez Musharraf is fending off the
fundamentalists with both hands. If the US drops a nuke on Iran, it is
possible that the Taliban-allied fundamentalists in Pakistan would rise
up and overthrow Musharraf, thus gaining control of Pakistan's own
arsenal of nuclear weapons. All of a sudden, those nukes would be loose,
and India would lose its collective mind.

It was a cogent argument I made, filled with common sense. My boss
seemed mollified, and we bid each other goodnight. Ten minutes later, I
had an email from my boss in my Inbox. He'd sent me Paul Krugman's
latest editorial from the New York Times, titled "Yes He Would."
<http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041106M.shtml> Krugman's piece opens
this way:

"But he wouldn't do that." That sentiment is what made it possible
for President Bush to stampede America into the Iraq war and to fend
off hard questions about the reasons for that war until after the
2004 election. Many people just didn't want to believe that an
American president would deliberately mislead the nation on matters
of war and peace. "But he wouldn't do that," say people who think
they're being sensible. Given what we now know about the origins of
the Iraq war, however, discounting the possibility that Mr. Bush
will start another ill-conceived and unnecessary war isn't sensible.
It's wishful thinking.

Great.

Things have come to a pretty pass in the United States of America
when the first question you have to ask yourself on matters of war and
death is, "Just how crazy are these people?" Every cogent estimate sees
Iran's nuclear capabilities not becoming any kind of reality for another
ten years, leaving open a dozen diplomatic and economic options for
dealing with the situation. There is no good reason for attacking that
country, but there are a few bad reasons to be found.

The worst of the bad reasons, of course, is that an attack on Iran
would change the conversation in Washington as the 2006 midterm
elections loom. Bush and his congressional allies are about as popular
as scabies right now, according to every available poll. If the current
trend is not altered or disrupted, January 2007 may come with Democratic
Rep. John Conyers Jr. sitting as Chairman of the House Judiciary
Committee with subpoena powers in hand.

"As Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace recently pointed out," continued Krugman in his editorial, "the
administration seems to be following exactly the same script on Iran
that it used on Iraq: 'The vice president of the United States gives a
major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle
East. The US secretary of state tells Congress that the same nation is
our most serious global challenge. The secretary of defense calls that
nation the leading supporter of global terrorism. The president blames
it for attacks on US troops.'"

For the moment, one significant departure from the Iraq script has
been the Bush administration vehemently denying that an attack on Iran,
particularly with nuclear weapons, is an option being considered at this
time. Bush himself called the Hersh article "wild speculation," and
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan bluntly stated that the US
is committed to diplomacy. Gary Sick, an Iran expert quoted by columnist
Jim Lobe in a recent article, seems to think the reputation for
irrational and dangerous actions enjoyed by the Bush administration is
being used as a psychological lever. "That is their record," said Sick,
"so they have no need to invent it. If they can use that reputation to
keep Iran - and everybody else - off balance, so much the better."

Then why this cold feeling in the pit of my stomach? Julian Borger,
writing for the UK Guardian, has some added insight. "Vincent
Cannistraro," writes Borger, "a former CIA counter-terrorism operations
chief, said Mr. Bush had not yet made up his mind about the use of
direct military action against Iran. 'There is a battle for Bush's soul
over that,' he said, adding that Karl Rove, the president's chief
political adviser is adamantly opposed to a war. However, Mr.
Cannistraro said covert military action, in the form of special forces
troops identifying targets and aiding dissident groups, is already under
way. 'It's been authorized, and it's going on to the extent that there
is some lethality to it. Some people have been killed.'"

A battle for Bush's soul? Some people have been killed? It's a wild
day here in Bizarro World when I find myself in total agreement with
Karl Rove. It is the uncertainty in all this that makes the situation
truly terrifying. No sane person would undertake an action so fraught
with peril, but if we have learned anything in the last few years, it is
that sanity takes a back seat in this administration's hayride.

I bought a coffee this morning at the excellent café, around the
corner, which is run by a wonderful Iranian woman. I asked her
point-blank what would happen in her home country if we did attack. She
dismissed the possibility out of hand. "I read that Krugman article,"
she said, "but there's no way they would do this. They'd have to be crazy."

Indeed. Too bad that hasn't stopped them yet.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
/William Rivers Pitt is a New
York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: /War on
Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1893956385/qid=1055796595/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-8359763-1225605?v=glance&s=books>/
and/ The Greatest Sedition Is Silence
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0745320104/qid=1055796595/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8359763-1225605?v=glance&s=books>./

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Re: *How Crazy Are They?* —By Sean Wilentz / Rolling Stone, Thu Apr 20 20:12

The Worst President in History? —By Sean Wilentz / Rolling Stone, Thu Apr 20 20:14