Iran on Fire? Billmon on fire.

international | crime and justice | other press Saturday July 23, 2005 02:47 by beckemon

http://billmon.org/archives/002051.html

As always, many things are possible. The neocons aren't exactly known for folding just because the other guy holds all the high cards. But it may be that the current alternatives -- which might, God forbid, include the use of tactical nukes against Iran's hardened nuclear facilities -- are so grim and so scary that even the neocons are finally behaving like rational chumps, instead of crazy ones. For a change.

Update 4:10 pm ET: I didn't realize when I wrote this post that the American Conservative (dead tree version) was reporting this:

The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.

Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States.

Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing -- that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack -- but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

You have to love that last line. I bet that defense goes over REAL big at their war crime trials.

Seriously, though, I we should all pray (long and hard) that his is just Dick Cheney trying out Dick Nixon's "madman theory" -- acting like a genocidal maniac in hopes of convincing the other side that you really might be a genocidal maniac. (like the Chinese generals I mentioned above.)