And, you know, I'll bet we'll soon be hearing that all that talk about how radioactive fallout is bad for you is really just based on "junk science": Bush won't rule out nuclear strike on Iran By Edmund Blair Yahoo! News/Reuters 04/18/06.
What can you say? How crazy is this?
This San Francisco Chronicle editorial summarizes it pretty well, saying it's Dangerous brinksmanship 04/13/06.
Perhaps in another era, Americans would be reassured by their president's dismissal of a report that the United States is preparing for military strikes on Iran -- including the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker - as "wild speculation." Perhaps there was a time when Americans could have confidence in their government's assessment of an emerging threat and sleep well at night knowing that it would not initiate a war that could have been averted - or unleash the full fury of its military might without thinking through the consequences.
The Iraq experience suggests cause for great concern about the credibility and judgment of the Bush White House on matters of national security.
Before Iraq, most Americans might have assumed that the notion of using nuclear weapons to keep another nation from developing a nuclear capability would have been so reckless and hypocritical as to be unthinkable. Or, in the words of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, "completely nuts." ...
Yes, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is chilling, but there is no evidence to suggest it is imminent. Sometimes vagueness can be a valuable tool of diplomacy. Washington certainly wants Tehran to worry about the consequences of defying international pressure to cease its nuclear program.
But President Bush should take one option off the table. He should make it clear that this nation will never use nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive strike against anyone. (my emphasis)
Unfortunately, arrogance and religious zealotry on both sides may well make a sensible solution impossible.
Both the Bush administration and the Iranian clerical regime are reeling from historic low support figures from their constituent populations. United States politicians know that attacking Iran is a sure-fire political winner with the American public. Iran has become America's all-purpose bogeyman. Foolish declarations, such as the State Department assertion that Iran is America's "greatest security threat" are received uncritically by voters throughout the nation. Similarly in Iran, the United States can be freely demonized without serious question. The leaders of the Islamic republic regularly blame the United States for their own failings in managing economic development, border control and corruption.
The issue the two sides have seized upon for the last three years is Iran's nuclear development program. For U.S. politicians, nothing gets the attention of the American public more reliably than the threat of nuclear weapons being deployed against the United States. This frightening prospect was effective in convincing the nation to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Merely suggesting that Iran poses a nuclear danger is enough to convince many Americans that the suggestion is based on fact. (my emphasis)
But the dynamic he identifies sounds altogether plausible:
Indeed, the danger in this situation could be dismissed if there were other leaders in power. However, in both nations the leadership needs this conflict. President Bush and the Republican party face defeat in November without an issue to galvanize the voting public behind their assertion that they are best able to protect the United States from attack - the only point on which they have outscored Democrats in recent polls. President Ahmadinejad also needs public support for his domestic political agenda - an agenda that is paradoxically opposed by a large number of the ruling clerics in Iran. Every time he makes a defiant assertion against the United States, the public rallies behind him.
This creates what political scientist Richard Cottam termed a "spiral conflict" in which both parties escalate each other's extreme positions to new heights. (my emphasis)
[A] subterranean power struggle appears to be under way in Iran, although the field of play — and how the teams line up — is unclear. Part of the problem is that most of the available public "information" about what's happening inside the Iranian government is either being peddled by the neocons, who want war, or by reported by mainstream journalists, who may not know what's going on.
Indeed, it's not clear to me anyone has a clear idea of how the Iranian power structure works. Enigma doesn't even begin to cover it.
That said, I think Ahmadinejad is manuevering to make himself Iran's president in fact as well as name. He's been purging non-hardliners from the state ministries that fall directly under his authority, and shaking up the Revolutionary Guard and extending its strength and influence — particularly its paramilitary wing, the Basij, who are both the regime's bully boys and his own main power base.
There are rumors, which admittedly could be CIA or neocon disinformation, that Ahmadinejad eventually hopes to force the retirement of Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, and replace him with a clerical ally, who would function more as the president's partner, if not his figurehead. Certainly, Ahmadinejad is seeking to curb, and ultimately crush, the pragmatist faction (remember, it's a relative term) centered around his rival in last year's election, Ollie North's negotiating partner, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. (my emphasis)
