If the US attacks Iran....: George Bush's "Samson Option"

If the US attacks Iran....: George Bush's "Samson Option"

The Samson Option is terminology used to explain
Israel's intention to use its nuclear arsenal as an ultimate
defense strategy if its leaders feel threatened enough to think
they have no alternative. It comes from the biblical Samson said to
have used his great strength to bring down the pillars of a
Philistine temple, downing its roof and killing himself and
thousands of Philistine tormentors. It's a strategy saying if you
try killing me, we'll all die together, or put another way, we'll
all go together when we go. Richard Wagner had his apocalyptic
version in the last of his four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen -
Gotterdammerung, or Twilight of the Gods based on Norse mythology
referring to a prophesied war of the Gods resulting in the end of
the world.

The Bush Doctrine isn't that extreme, and it's not
the intent of this essay to suggest its unintended consequences may
turn out that way even though the threat it may is real if they
start firing off enough nukes like they're king-sized hand
grenades. The Doctrine refers to the administration's foreign
policy first aired by George Bush in his commencement speech to the
West Point graduating class in June, 2002. It was later formalized
in The National Security Strategy of September, 2002 and updated in
more extreme form in early 2006 that makes for scary reading not
recommended at bedtime. It mentions Iran in it 16 times stating:
"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from
Iran" while failing to acknowledge what Pogo said about us on an
Earth Day poster in 1970 and in a 1972 book titled - "We Have Met
the Enemy and He Is Us."

The updated NSS details an "imperial grand strategy"
with new language more belligerent than the original version that
was intended to be a declaration of preemptive or preventive war
against any country or force the administration claims threatens
our national security. It followed from our Nuclear Policy Review
of December, 2001 claiming a unilateral right to declare and wage
future wars using first strike nuclear weapons that in enough
numbers potentially can destroy all planetary life, save maybe some
resilient roaches and bacteria. In still other national security
documents, the administration intends being ready by maintaining
total control over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air,
space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough
overwhelming power to defeat any potential challengers using all
weapons in the arsenal, including those nukes masquerading as
king-sized grenades.

The doctrine got its baptism in Afghanistan right
after the 9/11 attacks and before the 2002 NSS was released. It
then played out in real time "shock and awe" force (without nukes)
in Iraq that seemed to work like a charm until it didn't. That
brings us to today and an administration feeling cornered by
failure and needing to change the subject and get a victory in the
face of major defeat or at least buy enough time to run out the
clock on its tenure so a new administration can take over and deal
with the mess left over. It'll be king-sized if the audible war
drums now beating are for real.

Enter Iran to play dual roles for the Bush
administration plus the same one always center stage when strategic
resources are at stake. It's the designated target to pull George
Bush's Middle East fat out of the fire and fulfill our 28 year
commitment to regime change in the country since its 1979
revolution ousted Shah Reza Pahlavi whom we installed to replace
democratically elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 in
the CIA's first-ever go at regime change. Those events began and
ended the same way - violently, but if George Bush proceeds as he's
now threatening, they'll seem like tempest-in-teapot prologues to
the main event ahead looking like full scale war large enough to
engulf the whole region and entire Muslim world with it.

CIA's assessment is blunt. If the US attacks Iran,
Southern Shia Iraq will light up like a candle and explode
uncontrollably throughout the country. CIA ought to know and likely
concluded big trouble won't just be in Iraq, Shia Islam and the
Middle East. It may show up anywhere including a neighborhood near
you but not to express reconciliation and friendship.

Washington's other motive is no mystery to anyone
knowing why we attacked and now occupy Iraq. It had nothing to do
with nonexistent weapons and everything to do with removing a
leader unwilling to accept our imperial management rules whose
country happens to have the fourth largest and easily accessible
proven oil reserves in the world we want to control. The joke goes
- how did our oil end up under his sand. The same is true for Iran
and has since 1979. The country's leaders reject our rules, and it
too has easily accessible oil reserves that are the world's third
largest behind Saudi Arabia and Canada (including the country's
heavy reserves). Further, both countries have vast untapped more of
them adding to their allure and Washington's determination to
control them alone to have veto power over who gets access.

If the US attacks Iran, all bets are off on what's to
come. The echoes of Waterloo could turn George Bush's Middle East
adventurism into his inadvertent Samson option by expanding the
Iraq conflict to a regional one with impossible to predict
consequences that won't be good for Western interests and
especially US ones. It will inflame the region and produce a
tsunami of Shia rage and solidarity enough to inflame and unite the
whole Muslim world in fierce opposition to America, its culture and
people. It may irrevocably transform the region making it unwelcome
for decades or longer to anything Western that only arrives for
what it can take and doesn't take no for an answer.

It's backlash may also affect the administration and
its party as unintended fallout from an ill-conceived adventure
gone sour and beyond repair. And it may have further unintended
consequences as well - the painful blowback kind from angry people
striking back in catastrophic payback ways far harsher than ever
before. It could be a dirty bomb or two detonated in one more US
cities or a nuclear reactor core meltdown from sabotage or attack
releasing lethal radiation in amounts great enough to make downwind
areas from it forever uninhabitable. Imagine a nightmarish vision
of New York or Chicago (surrounded by 11 aging nuclear power
plants) as ghost towns, their structures intact but unfit to be
occupied.

There is a macabre bright side, however, once past
the onslaught if it comes and its aftermath. In six years, the Bush
administration achieved the near-impossible. It made the US a
pariah state alienating the whole Muslim world and vast numbers
more everywhere including growing numbers at home with George
Bush's approval rating at numbers approaching the lowest ever for a
US president. Its policies of permanent war on the world,
repression at home, entrenched corruption, worship of wealth and
privilege, and indifference to human needs and the people he was
elected to serve already destroyed any notion the country is a
model democratic state or that Bush and his neocon fanatics should
be governing it. Their imperial arrogance accelerated the country's
fading global hegemony well advanced since the 1970s and likely
irreversible. They buried the nation's influence and dominance in
Iraq's smoldering sands and Afghanistan's rubble that are now both
graveyards for US ambitions in those regions and beyond.

Attacking Iran will just make things far worse. It
would be a fanatical "hail Mary" act of insanity that by one
definition is repeating the same mistakes, expecting different
results. It has no more chance of success than our misadventures in
Iraq and Afghanistan. And if nuclear weapons are used, including
so-called low-yield ones, it will be an appalling crime against
humanity and catastrophic event potentially affecting millions in
the region by radiation poisoning alone. If it happens, it will
irreversibly weaken US influence and credibility everywhere
accelerating our decline even faster toward second-class status and
loss of world leadership already hanging by a thread. It could also
be a potentially lethal blow to the benefits of "Western
civilization" always arriving through the barrel of a gun and
thuggish heel of a colonizer's boot with the US having the biggest
barrels and largest shoe sizes.

Key US players know the risks and want our losses cut
before it's too late to act. They want an end to war, not more of
it in a strategically vital world region too important to lose
while fearing it's likely too late. The National Intelligence
Estimate supports them believing the war in Iraq is unwinnable,
transforming the country into a pro-American state impossible, and
the president's notion of victory illusory. George Bush ignores its
assessment and presses on.

Reports by Seymour Hersh and others now say the
administration wants to weaken the Bashir Assad-led Syrian
government's alliance with Iran and further undermine Hezbollah's
influence in Lebanon and the region by funding Sunni extremist
groups with known ties to al-Queda in what's called a "redirection
program." It's the brainchild of Dick Cheney/Elliott Abrams (of
Iran-Contra notoriety)/Zalmay Khalilzad/Condi Rice/Saudi Prince
Bandar bin Sultan/Israeli elements & Co. with CIA's hands are
all over it covertly beyond Congress' reach. It includes a larger
effort, with Saudi help, to fund and unleash Sunni extremist
elements against Tehran at the same time Washington is preparing to
include Iran and Syria in regional discussions on the situation in
Iraq. It proves again duplicity and shameless hypocrisy are never
in short supply in Washington. They're only topped by the neocon
leadership's crazed strategy to make a hopeless Middle East debacle
catastrophic.

The Concocted Myth of Iran's
Threat

The ancient Persian empire became Iran on March 21,
1935. From that time till now, Iran obeyed international law, never
occupied a foreign territory, and never threatened or attacked
another state beyond occasional border skirmishes over unsettled
disputes of the kinds other nations engage in that are far short of
all out wars. It only had full-scale conflict defensively after
Saddam Hussein launched a full-scale invasion in September, 1980
backed, equipped and financially aided by Washington that included
supplying chemical and biological weapon precursors and crucial
intelligence on Iranian field positions and force strength.

The conflict became known as the Iran-Iraq war. It
lasted till August, 1988 over which time a million or more people
died, countless numbers more were wounded and displaced, with
America all the while inciting both sides to keep up the killing.
It hoped to destroy both countries and then move in to pick up the
pieces like it's been trying to do since in the Middle East and
elsewhere with growing difficulty as not everyone likes our rules
and some are even bold enough to renounce them.

Iran became a major US adversary after its 1979
revolution established the Islamic Republic in February, 1980.
Since then, the two countries have had no diplomatic ties and
relations between them have been frosty and uncertain at best with
Washington only interested in normalization on its usual one-way
dictated terms. They're the same kinds offered other developing
states - we're "boss," surrender your sovereignty to ours, and
accede to neoliberal market-based rules made in Washington that
aren't negotiable. Iran refuses so it's public enemy number one
topping the US target queue for regime change. Rule by extremist
mullahs and reactors aren't the problems. They're just pretexts
like all the phony intelligence about Iran destabilizing Iraq
discussed below.

Despite a hopeless quagmire in Iraq, the Bush
administration seems focused on further escalation notwithstanding
the danger, near-impossible chance of success, and mounting
opposition and anger to its agenda in the homeland. It's coming
from the public on Iraq and even the Congress with some there
getting twitchy enough to voice concern, though still far short of
acting as they can and should with too many there twitching to
fight, not quit. It's also heard in the highest ranks of power from
both parties first circulated in the Jim Baker-led Iraq Study Group
that reported its rumor-leaked findings December 6. It represented
a clear rejection of Bush administration Iraq policies gone sour, a
proposed rescue plan and effort to save his family name, and a
scheme to restore US Middle East dominance, fast slipping away, and
near past the point of no return by now from which there's likely
none.

Despite its clout, its recommendations went unheeded,
especially regarding engaging Iran and Syria to help bail Bush's
Middle East fat out of its self-made fire. And nothing's changed in
the wake of Washington's agreeing to include those countries'
officials in initial and follow-up discussions on Iraq's security
along with members of the Arab League, Organization of Islamic
Unity, G 8 countries, and five permanent members of the Security
Council.

The decision represents no softening of the US's
position, and the administration likely will use the talks to
repeat unproved claims Iranian elements support anti-American
forces in Iraq, continue refusing broader diplomatic discussions
unless Tehran stops enriching uranium which it won't nor should it
be forced to or be punished for, and keep negotiating the way it
always does - making ultimatums and accepting no compromise,
meaning nothing will be resolved and tensions will only be further
heightened. And if anyone doubts that's how things will unfold, the
New York Times was front and center spelling it out. It reported
any US discussions involving Iran and Syria won't be "from a
position of weakness (so the administration intends) ratcheting up
the confrontational talk (to show) the United States was in more of
a driver's seat" and not planning to negotiate in good faith. No
surprise.

The Bush administration's rejectionism has even
deeper roots going back at least to a 2003 "grand bargain" offer
from Iran - unreported, of course, in the corporate media. It was
approved by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, former President
Mohammad Khatami and former Foreign Foreign Minister Kamal
Kharrazi. Former Bush National Security Council official Flynt
Leverett revealed it calling it a "serious proposal (he knew from
multiple sources) went all the way up to former Secretary of State
Colin Powell (who) 'couldn't sell it at the White House.' " It was
part of a six year Bush administration pattern of rejecting all
Iranian overtures with responses of ultimatums, threats and
Washington-style bullying all framed to send the same message.
Washington wants nothing less than regime change and may go to war
for it.

Fast forward to today and the largely unreported
testimony of former Carter administration National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
February 1. He highlighted it in an op ed piece in the Los Angeles
Times February 11 calling "The war in Iraq....a historic strategic
and moral calamity undertaken under false assumptions....
undermining America's global legitimacy (and) tarnishing America's
moral credentials. (It's) driven by Manichean impulses and imperial
hubris, it is intensifying regional instability." It's too bad he
ignored the most damning fact of all - the Iraq and Afghan wars are
both acts of illegal aggression the Nuremberg Tribunal called "the
supreme international crime" and Nazis convicted of it were hanged.
Don't expect a hint of that from a spear-carrying member of the
empire in good standing.

Brzezinski did say the conflict is ominous for the
national interest, and if the country stays bogged down in Iraq
it's on track for a "likely head-on conflict with Iran and much of
the Islamic world." He believes if it happens it will mean a
"spreading and deepening (protracted) quagmire lasting 20 years or
more and eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and
Pakistan (causing) pervasive popular antagonism" and plunging the
US into growing political isolation. He stated a "plausible
scenario (for war with Iran) might be "some provocation in Iraq or
a terrorist act (real or otherwise) blamed on Iran."

Brzezinski represents powerful interests using him as
their influential spokesman. They want an end to policies gone sour
they see harming "the national interest" meaning their own. He and
they want "a significant change in direction" with a strategy to
"end the occupation of Iraq" with a serious US commitment to "shape
a regional security dialogue that includes all Iraq's neighbors
including Iran and Syria and other major Muslim countries like
Egypt and Pakistan." He's calling for an unambiguous "determination
to leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time," and believes
the US should "activate a credible and energetic effort (to end the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict without which) nationalist and
fundamentalist passions (will eventually doom) any Arab regime
(perceived supporting) US regional hegemony." Brzezinski sounded
alarmist about the Bush administration's hostile intentions toward
Iran, and his implications are clear. Washington's agenda is
ominous and threatening the national interest. He denounced the
scheme and pressed Congress to engage Iran, not attack it. His
message so far is unheeded.

Brzezinski's influential voice was joined by Russian
President Vladimir Putin's addressing the international security
conference in Munich February 10. He stunned listeners with his
harsh frankness accusing the US of endangering the world pursuing
policies aimed at making it "one single master (in a) unipolar
world." He went on saying "It has nothing in common with democracy
(and the people) teaching us democracy (but) don't want to learn it
themselves." He continued that US policy "overstepped its national
borders in every way....in the economic, political and cultural
policies it imposes on other nations."

He claimed the US is responsible for "a greater and
greater disdain for the principles of international law (and) no
one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will
protect them." He also accused the US of stimulating "an arms race
(in an environment where) peace is not so reliable." He added
"Unilateral actions have not resolved conflicts but have made them
worse," and force should only be used when authorized as
international law requires by the UN Security Council. He sounded
an alarm gone unheard in the West that "Today we are witnessing an
almost uncontained hyper use of force - military force.... that is
plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts (and)
Finding a political settlement....becomes impossible." He further
warned about the use of "space (or) high tech weapons" with
implications of a new cold war, nuclear arms race and frightening
possibility of devastating nuclear war that was unthinkable before
the age of George Bush.

The Dominant Media React

As President of a major world power, Putin's comments
went out to the world getting broad coverage, if only for a day or
so, while Brzezinski's were largely and shamelessly ignored by the
corrupted corporate media still carrying the administration's water
and trumpeting its phony claims like verifiable gospel. It happened
on February 11 in the New York Times as reported by correspondent
James Glanz. His column breathed the scantiest hints of skepticism
that smacked of the same kind of Judith Miller-type journalism
about WMDs helping take the country to war with Iraq in 2003. He
said the US military showed "their first public evidence of the
contentious assertion that Iran supplies Shiite extremist groups in
Iraq with some of the most lethal weapons in the war....used to
kill more than 170 Americans in the past three years" with only
hints about its reliability or the source presenting it having
none.

He cited senior defense officials in Baghdad February
11 displaying "an array of mortar shells and rocket-propelled
grenades with visible serial numbers (claimed to be directly
linked) to Iranian arms factories." Without credible proof, they
said "Iranian leaders had authorized smuggling those weapons into
Iraq for use against Americans (basing their judgment) on general
intelligence assessments (of the same kind used to justify
attacking Iraq, meaning phony ones.) The specious Times report
reeked of innuendos for what it lacked in hard proof about lethal
weapons. They could have come from any source, manufactured
anywhere, including by Pentagon contractors easily able to
duplicate anything scattered around the country and on Iraqi
streets for years after the Iranian conflict and now used by
resistance fighters or anyone else who has them.

Typical Times saber rattling was at it again after
Bush's inept February 14 news conference trumpeting his claim Iran
was sending weapons to Iraq to undermine security and kill
Americans while never looking more pathetic and awkward doing it.
In "Times talk," reporters Stolberg and Santora stated "Mr. Bush's
remarks amounted to his most specific accusation to date that Iran
was undermining security in Iraq....(and he) dismissed as
'preposterous' the contention by some skeptics that the United
States was drawing unwarranted conclusions about Iran's role." They
barely questioned the president's nonsensical claim he's certain
"the (paramilitary) Quds Force, a part of the government, has
provided these sophisticated I.E.D's that have harmed our troops"
that has as much credibility as those WMDs we had to fear along
with that "mushroom shaped cloud" we couldn't afford to wait to see
before acting.

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Facts On the Ground Trump the Propaganda

Revealed facts on the ground in Iraq belie all
Pentagon and administration phony assertions along with their
shameless daily echoing on the Times front pages. The military
couldn't even get its evidence straight in presenting an 81mm
mortar shell Iran doesn't make, and the ones shown the media had
fake markings in English for a Farsi-speaking country. It's also
inconceivable Shia Iran would be fighting Iraq's Shia government
it's allied with and aids. The US has been fighting an anti-Iranian
Sunni resistance largely in al-Anbar province and the most violent
parts of Baghdad. It stretches credibility to imagine Iran is
arming its enemy that denounces Iraq's dominant Shia puppet
government as a US pawn.

That hardly deters Washington claiming further solid
evidence Iranian agents are involved in what the State Department
calls "networks" (meaning Iranians) working with individuals and
groups in Iraq sent there by the Iranian government without a shred
of evidence to prove it. Even General Peter Pace, US Joint Chiefs
of Staff Chairman, dismisses the claim as unproved and further said
during a February trip to the Pacific region there is "zero" chance
of a US war with Iran.

He may be echoing the kind of sentiment the London
Times reported February 25 that "highly placed defence and
intelligence sources (say) Some of America's most senior commanders
are prepared to resign (in protest) if the White House orders a
military strike against Iran." The paper calls this type of
high-level internal dissent unprecedented signifying great distaste
and misgivings in the Pentagon for an attack on Iran. That's a
sentiment even its Joint Chiefs Chairman may share as well as the
six retired generals (and likely others) who publicly denounced the
Pentagon's handling of the Iraq war last spring and the
administration's incompetence overall.

Nonetheless, preparations for war go on that veteran
journalist Seymour Hersh again wrote about in late February in the
New Yorker magazine. According to Hersh's informed sources: "The
Pentagon is continuing intensive planning for a possible bombing
attack on Iran....at the direction of the President. (It includes)
a contingency plan...that can be implemented (in) 24 hours....The
Iran planning group (is assigned) to identify targets in Iran that
may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq (on top of
its previous focus to destroy) Iran's nuclear facilities and
possible regime change." Hersh's report supplements others, like
one from BBC, saying the US military is planning an all out "shock
and awe" blitzkrieg on the country's nuclear facilities, military
and infrastructure that may come in the spring that's now just days
away.

A clear sign of that possibility is the huge naval
buildup in the Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean with two heavily
equipped and armed carrier groups in theater and a reported third
en route either to replace one there or add to it. The combined
task force in place is a formidable assemblage of 50 or more
warships with nuclear weapons, hundreds of planes and contingents
of Marines and Navy personnel.

The buildup is part of former Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld's plan for preemptive nuclear war specifically
targeting Iran and North Korea. Earlier, Dick Cheney originated the
idea when he served as GHW Bush's Defense Secretary in the early
1990s. Rumsfeld picked up the scheme in 2004 as authorized by the
2002 National Security Strategy proclaiming an official doctrine of
preemptive or preventive war for the first time. From it he
approved a top secret "Interim Global Strike Alert Order" for
military readiness against hostile countries that included the
nuclear option. He drew on CONPLAN (contingency/concept plan) 8022
completed in November 2003 detailing a plan to preemptively strike
targets anywhere in the world judged a national security threat
including hardened structures using tactical so-called low-yield
nuclear bunker busters with Iran the apparent first target of
choice. The Omaha-based US Strategic Command (StratCom) would run
any operation if undertaken as it's the command center for the
country's nuclear deterrent and overseas the military's nuclear
arsenal.

All military branches have ready battle plans to
implement against Iran under the name TIRANNT for Theater Iran Near
Term. If an attack order comes, it can be launched from the
assembled Naval task force in the region and/or by long-range
US-based bombers and other warplanes and missiles strategically
based in locations like Diego Garcia and elsewhere within striking
distance of Iranian targets. It will be able to assault Iran round
the clock for weeks against a claimed number of 1500
nuclear-related sites located at 18 main locations in the country.
Also designated are thousands of strategic military and civilian
targets including vital infrastructure, industrial sites, air,
naval and ground force bases, missile facilities and always
command-and-control centers with possible help from Israeli
warplanes that might, in fact, initiate an attack with US forces
then joining in to support their regional partner.

That kind of devious scheme could persuade Congress
to go along never wanting to offend the Israeli Lobby that's been
spoiling for a fight with Iran for years and now may get it
horrifically with unimaginable consequences. They'll affect Israel
and the US alike as well as spillover to unstable countries in the
region like the Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians and Lebanese and may
be unsettling enough to unseat sitting rulers and governments
replacing them with the kinds of fundamentalist regimes not likely
to welcome US presence or influence in the region and intending to
do something about it.

The Bush Roadmap to War with Iran

Reports circulated as early as last year and in 2005
that the Bush administration signed off on a "shock and awe" attack
against Iran to destroy its perfectly legal commercial nuclear
program that may involve using so-called "mini-nuke robust earth
penetrator bunker-buster" weapons that won't be "mini" in their
catastrophic effects if indeed used. These are powerful dangerous
weapons. They can be made to any desired potency, would likely be
from one-third to two-thirds as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb that
destroyed an entire city, but could have far greater explosive
capability that potentially will be catastrophic to the area struck
and well beyond by radiation contamination alone.

Pentagon false and misleading reports about them
claim they're "safe for civilians" because they penetrate the earth
and explode underground. Test results prove otherwise showing when
released from 40,000 feet a B61-11 nuclear earth-penetrator
burrowed about 20 feet in the soil for a pre-explosion depth able
to produce intense fallout over the area struck that's unremediable
and would result in enough permanent surface contamination to be
unsafe for human habitation. Nonetheless, weapons able to cause a
nuclear holocaust are cleared for use real time along with
conventional ones if a "shock and awe" attack is ordered against
Iran or any other nation on the false and misleading pretext of
protecting the national security only threatened by a rogue
leadership at home willing to risk catastrophic mass destruction in
pursuit of its insane and unachieveable imperial aims.

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Not surprisingly, we have an eager partner in Israel
straining at the leash to fulfill its long-term agenda to attack
Iran alone (possible but doubtful) or along with its US ally that
keeps getting reinforced by bellicose statements by its high
officials like the one reported February 13 by ultra-right wing
Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman. He commented in a
radio interview that if necessary "We will have to face the
Iranians alone, because Israel cannot remain with its arms folded,
waiting for Iran to develop non-conventional (nuclear) weapons."
Officials like Lieberman, current Israeli prime minister Ehud
Olmert and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are dangerous
men on the far right allied with others in government and the
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) all dripping war talk that must be
taken seriously from a nation dedicated to conflict and never shy
about striking the first all out aggressive blow.

The same theme comes from a report published February
11 that vice-president Cheney's national security advisor, John
Hannah (who replaced Lewis Libby just convicted of obstruction of
justice, perjury and lying to the FBI), speaking for the Bush
administration, considers 2007 "the year of Iran" saying a US
attack is a real possibility. Hannah played a key role in the
run-up to the Iraq war having written the first draft of Colin
Powell's infamous pre-war speech to the Security Council citing
bogus evidence. He also played a lead role putting out phony
pre-war intelligence from Iraqi exiles. Now he's at the seat of
power and must be taken seriously, especially since his boss barely
disguises his aggressive posturing for war against the Iranian
state he's wanted for 15 years or more.

They're both part of the high-level propaganda
messaging similar to the lead-up to the Iraq war. It's aim is
instill fear to make the administration's case that Iran poses
serious threat enough to justify military action against it. It
follows UN Resolutions 1696 in July demanding Iran suspend uranium
enrichment by August 31, which it didn't, and 1737 in December
imposing limited sanctions on Iran for not abiding by what the
Security Council demanded in July. A second deadline passed putting
the Iranian matter back in the Security Council to consider new
sanctions be imposed and ratcheting things closer to a US attack as
further events unfold.

And so the beat goes on with US oil reserves being
stockpiled, Iranian diplomats apprehended in Iraq, the Pentagon and
Israeli forces scheming together, the US military buildup in the
Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean continuing, US ground forces moved
to the Iran-Iraq border, Patriot missiles strategically installed
in Israel and neighboring Arab states, a "surge" of up to 50,000
additional troops planned, and a change of commanders on the ground
in Iraq made replacing less hawkish ones with others supporting the
Bush war strategy.

They're part of the new Pentagon team under Defense
Secretary Robert Gates who told the Senate Armed Services Committee
the military needs to prepare for large-scale operations against
countries like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran that reaffirms
the administration's commitment to its "long war" Dick Cheney said
won't end in our lifetime, but may end up shortening it. Clearly
Iran is the next planned target, the dominant media echoes the
threat, and Congress is just a talking-shop like always posturing
as the gathering storm in the Gulf intensifies.

Published reports, citing credible sources, point to
an attack on Iran by April by an administration on total expanded
war footing with the president spoiling for a fight by goading Iran
to react in response to his order to "seek out and destroy"
(supposed) Iranian "networks" in Iraq. Bush minced no words in a
radio interview saying "If Iran escalates its military action in
Iraq (even though there's none)....we will respond firmly." Other
officials joined the jingoistic chorus accusing Iran of involvement
in sectarian violence practically signaling an upcoming attack that
easily could follow a manufactured pretext if Iran fails to provide
one on its own which it won't. It's never hard to do, and the
infamous trumped up Gulf of Tonkin one in August, 1964 shows how
easy it is to fool the public and get Congress to go along.

Iran could save us the trouble by responding to US
provocations going on now for months by illegally flying unmanned
aerial surveillance drones across its airspace and secretly placing
special forces reconnaissance teams on the ground "to collect
targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic
minority groups" according to an earlier report by Seymour Hersh.
So far, Iran hasn't taken the bait even though it knows what's
happening and reportedly downed one or more intruding aircraft it
has every legal right to do but is treading dangerously against an
adversary looking for any pretext to pounce. It's leaders also knew
what Washington was up to after being made a charter member of
Bush's "Axis of Evil." In that status, it's blamed for the
administration's failure in Iraq with false claims of arming the
resistance and inciting violence.

War on Iran may, in fact, have already started, and
two bombings in Southeastern Iranian Zahedan bordering Pakistan and
Afghanistan the week of February 12 may have been one of its
volleys. Arrests were made and a video seized according to
provincial police chief Brigadier General Mohammad Ghafari. From it
he claims the "rebels (have an) attachment to opposition groups and
some countries' intelligence services such as America and Britain."
An unnamed Iranian official also told the Islamic Republic News
Agency one of those arrested confessed he was trained by English
speakers, and the attack was part of US plans to provoke internal
unrest.

While none of this conclusively proves US
involvement, there's no secret Washington wants regime change, is
actively stirring up internal ethnic and political opposition
toward it, and reportedly is working with exiled Iranian leaders
including the Mujahideen el-Khalq (MEK) Iranian opposition
guerrilla cult the US State Department lists as a terrorist
organization, but not apparently when it's on our side.

Full-scale war on Iran may just be a concocted
terrorist attack away from starting the "shock and awe." There's no
secret what's planned and none whatever that doing it will be
another unprovoked, unwarranted act of preemptive illegal
aggression only the US and Israel support. It's also no secret Iran
is no pushover. It's no match for US and/or Israeli power, but it's
got powerful weapons one writer says are "unstoppable" like
Russian-built SS-N-22 Sunburn Missiles and more advanced SS-NX-26
Yakhont anti-ship ones designed to sink a US carrier that's a
formidable weapon of war but not invulnerable. Iran also has
Russian 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile systems and NATO-made Exocet and
Chinese Silkworm anti-ship missiles that pack a punch and can sink
our ships when launced from land, surface ships or submarines along
with 300 or more warplanes, and a large ground force estimated at
around 350,000.

US engaging Iran may now hinge on resolving the
Washington power struggle between Bush administration neocons and
more practical trilateralist types in the camp of Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Jim Baker, and other powerful Washington figures
including the president's father. It's also up to Congress to
decide which side it's on and whether it will act or watch from the
sidelines and risk nuclear war and its fallout. It may not be long
finding out how events will unfold. Just the kind and level of
rhetorical noise will tell who's winning with congressional
inaction and media complicity so far giving the hawks a big
advantage. Haven't we seen this script before, and isn't the likely
ending clear, except this time the stakes are far greater and so is
the risk to everyone on both sides.

http://911review.org/Media/Samson_Option.html