It worked before the 2002 elections, so why not now? George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the lame ducks that roar, are ready. So is John McCain. Hillary Clinton, now as then, is terrified of appearing soft, and even the anti-Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, has joined the chorus.
"What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and -women inside Iraq," he says, as a second aircraft carrier steams into the Persian Gulf and, according to CBS News, the Pentagon orders military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran.
On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton is warlike: "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel). In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
Joe Lieberman, McCain's alter ego, is envisaging "an attempt to hit some of the components of the nuclear program" primarily from the air, with some covert ground assistance. There is now "active discussion" of such plans, he says.
John McCain, now that Lieberman has straightened him out about Sunnis, Shiites and al Qaeda, is ready to roll in the fall campaign against that softie, Barack Obama, who still thinks he can talk down Ahmadinejad from the nuclear brink.
Haven't we seen this movie before?
There is NO question that many in the GOP would like to see "Iran" become a red-line issue, one way or the other.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, it was well on the way, with Russert demanding red-line answers to "What if Iran ..." questions.
It slowed, only, when the NIE on Iran's nuclear program pulled everything but the snare drum away from the militarists.