Friday, June 15, 2007
Clearly, Buchanan doesn't believe the new propaganda line that the Iranians are assisting attacks upon US forces in Iraq, although he is uncharacteristically subtle in his mode of expression. But, while the Democratic Congress is embarassingly derelict in its duties, we should not assume that, if hearings were conducted, that they would be especially useful, because long time readers of this blog will recall how, in the late summer and early fall of 2002, Senate Democrats refused to call witnesses like Stephen Zunes, Scott Ritter and Phyllis Bennis to refute claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction."As many as 200 American soldiers" may have been killed by Iranians or Iranian-trained insurgents, Lieberman claimed. Petraeus and Nick Burns would not be making these charges publicly if the White House did not want them made publicly.
What is going on? The most logical explanation is that the White House is providing advance justification for air strikes on camps of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that are allegedly providing training for and transferring weapons to Afghan and Iraqi insurgents. And if the United States conducts those strikes, Iranians will unite around Ahmadinejad, and Tehran will order retaliatory strikes against U.S. targets in Iraq and perhaps across the Middle East.
President Bush will then have his casus belli to take out Natanz and all the other Iranian nuclear facilities, as the Israelis and the neocons have been demanding that he do. This would mean a third Middle Eastern war for America, with a nation three times as large and populous as Iraq. Perhaps it is time to begin constructing a new wing on Walter Reed.
Which raises the question: Where is the Congress? Why is it not holding public hearings and sifting the evidence to determine if Tehran is behind these attacks on Americans and if the United States has not itself been aiding insurgents inside Iran? Or is it all up to George W. as to whether we launch a third and wider war in the Middle East, which could result in an economic and strategic disaster for the United States?
Labels: Democrats, Iraq War, Pat Buchanan, War with Iran
