In open contempt of Congress and the world, on Monday Bush appointed John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations.
Pundits wondered why Bush was so fixated on Bolton, since he could have chosen lots of other obnoxious neocons for the job. The answer is simple: Bolton is a man with a mission, and that mission is to engineer a US/UN war against Iran.
On the same day as Bolton was appointed, Iran delivered an "angry letter" to the IAEA "throwing down the gauntlet" with European negotiators over its uranium enrichment program.
Iran insists it has the right under international law to enrich uranium for nuclear power. (Just last week our very own Republican Congress adopted an energy bill which heavily subsidizes nuclear power.) But Europe insists Iran must stop its nuclear program. (Read this excellent summary of the situation by Henry Adams.)
"Everyone knows" Bush has threatened war against Iran if the negotiations fail. In February, Scott Ritter said Bush had "signed off" on plans to secretly bomb Iran as early as this past June. We know from the Iraq War that Bush launched a secret bombing campaign in the spring of 2002 to provoke Saddam into an act of retaliation that Bush could seize upon as justification for war. (In that case, Saddam didn't take the bait, so Bush went through an inspection charade at the U.N. before invading Iraq unilaterally on March 18, 2003.) But Iran's President-Elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not hiding in palaces dreaming of publishing a novel; he is an aggressive reactionary nationalist who has just as much contempt for the West as Bush has for the Near East.
Iran can thumb its nose at the West because it has developed close ties with the world's newest superpower, China. China is desperate for oil, and one reason for (and consequence of) the U.S. conquest of Iraq was to keep Iraq's oil from China. As a result, Iran's oil is now far more important to China, and China is willing to sell advanced weapons to Iran to help secure its supply.
By all indications, Bush is heading towards war with Iran and possibly China too. Of course, the U.S. is in a weak position to fight a country whose military is probably 10-20 times stronger than Iraq's. We have nearly 150,000 troops bogged down in Iraq, and military recruiters can't meet their quotas.
Of course, there's one way to solve the manpower shortage: by imposing a military dictatorship. And Bush took a giant step in that direction on June 24, when Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England approved the Pentagon's "Strategy for Homeland Defense and Support." Even FOX News is nervous about this totalitarian plan!
And there's one easy way for Bush to get around his problem finding "boots on the ground" to put in Iran - using nuclear weapons.
Will Bush start a nuclear war with Iran? Clearly Bush isn't the least bit chastened by the catastrophic war of lies in Iraq. And if he unleashes a global nuclear war, he's convinced he (and his supporters) will fly up to heaven in the Rapture. So what does Bush care about the billions who will be "left behind?"
If we go to war with Iran, it will not happen overnight. It will be just like Iraq - a wardrum struck here, another there, and pretty soon a new round of propaganda and lies will dominate the airwaves.
But the real action will be in the U.N., where Bush will have to isolate Iran from the rest of the world. So keep your eyes on John Bolton in the next two months as he breaks arms in the U.N. to isolate Iran and provoke it into war...
Update: It looks like the Intelligence community has no intention of helping Bush sell a war against Iran. In today's Pentagon Post, Dafna Linzer reports on the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran. NIE's are major events in the government, especially since they can provide the basis for starting a war. But NIE's are now under intense scrutiny, since the Iraq NIE was so full of lies. The new NIE on Iran undercuts neocon arguments for war with Iran in the immediate future.
A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.
The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House. Administration officials have asserted, but have not offered proof, that Tehran is moving determinedly toward a nuclear arsenal. The new estimate could provide more time for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. President Bush has said that he wants the crisis resolved diplomatically but that "all options are on the table."
The new National Intelligence Estimate includes what the intelligence community views as credible indicators that Iran's military is conducting clandestine work. But the sources said there is no information linking those projects directly to a nuclear weapons program. What is clear is that Iran, mostly through its energy program, is acquiring and mastering technologies that could be diverted to bombmaking.
