Thursday, January 25, 2007

Countdown to War with Cambodia...ooops... I mean Iran

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Leon Hadar

On a serious note. I'll be posting something longer on the topic in the next day or two. But in a way my earlier post on Iran-Israel-U.S. ties, including my Osirak Redux? tie neatly into what Bush is proposing. If you read his comments on Iran and Syria, it's becoming clear that the administration is preparing to escalate the war and expand it to Iran and Syria. The Cambodia analogy was raising by many pundits today, including by Senator Hagel during Condi's testimony on Capitol Hill:
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., a twice-wounded Vietnam veteran, called Bush's speech "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder since Vietnam - and I intend to resist it."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, testifying Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the administration had no plans to cross Iraq's borders to attack supporters of the Iraqi insurgency and militias.
But Hagel compared that strategy to former President Richard Nixon's escalation of the Vietnam War to Cambodia.
"You cannot sit here today, not because you are dishonest or don't understand - once you get to hot pursuit, no one can say we won't engage across border," he said. "Some of us remember 1970 and Cambodia, and our government lied to us and said we didn't cross the border. When you set in motion the kind of policy the president is talking about here, it is very, very dangerous."

I still think that the U.S. war with Iran will follow an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites this year. That would make it easier for Bush to sell a war with Iran to the pro-Israeli Congress. In recent days there have been several reports pointing to Israeli plans to do that. And it's also clear that the Saudis want that to happen (and when the Americans, the Saudis and the Israelis are working together against you, well,you're a (radio-active) toast. I've been predicting a growing confrontationa war with Iranfor quite a while. And more than two years proposed a Realpolitik road to diplomacy with Iran, along the lines suggested by the Iraq Study Group recently. Which reminds me of what I read on a gravestone in the cemetery in Key West: "I told that I was sick."

In any case, I recommend reading the commentary on the SurgeBush Plays Va Banque by The Chronicles' Srdja Trifkovic. and eventually

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