I've had a knot in my stomach for weeks as the rhetoric out of Washington amped up against Iran. As others have pointed out, this is deja vu, all over again. Sean-Paul Kelley at The Agonist pulls it all together and it paints one very scary picture.
The drumbeat for an attack on Iran is getting louder and louder.
Fears of Iranian economic dominance in Iran are being stoked, although the story is already weeks, if not months old. We've also been told the Iranians are cooperating with the North Koreans in their bid for nuclear weapons. Never mind that the North Koreans use plutonium in their reactors and the Iranians use uranium. Ooops.
Not to worry. A parade of administration officials from the President on down inform us that Iran is aiding and abetting the chaos in Iraq by providing weapons to Iraqis. Never mind that there is little or no proof that the Iranians are supplying weapons to groups in Iraq actively targeting American forces.no evidence found.) Then we were told the US is fighting a proxy war in Iraq with Iran. That news was complete with evidence, in the form of a leak and just one paragraph in the article, of Iranian weapons to support to Iraqis, never mind exactly which Iraqis. (The Washington Post conducted a similar investigation in October of last year with similar results:
In response to these clear provocations President Bush authorized US forces to kill Iranian operatives in Iraq. Although the rules of engagement have yet to be worked out in typically incompetent Bush Administration fashion.
There was a serious conference in Israel about Iran attended by the right Democrats who made the right speeches about the right position on Iran, giving the President much needed political cover to seem reasonable, statesmanlike and bipartisan.
We're also being told the murders in Karbala are the fault of the Iranians although at this point it is a 'working theory' only. Motive: revenge.