PS: The likely beneficiaries of a rumor that Goss asked to use Turkish soil would be those in Turkey who are OPPOSED to airstrikes on Iran. Once published, the rumor forces the Turks to deny it, creating a mult-day news event that puts the possibility of airstrikes into the public debate within Turkey. The result: the Turkish government becomes less likely to agree to supply any support at all.
Not something you’d think the right-wing J Post would want to see.

Posted by: JR | Jan 3 2006 23:11 utc | 4

I don’t understand what the German papers are doing. An attack on Iran is just not an option, despite all the sensational “leaks”. A war between Iran and Israel would devastate both countries. Iran is capable of inflicting great harm on Israel even without nuclear weapons. Iran may be ten years away from developing a bomb, which is what a CIA report concluded some months ago. Certainly the UN inspectors have found nothing to justify a military strike.
Ahmadinejad’s wild rhetoric is calculated to show that the West is incapable of doing anything at all to Iran. Iran is seemingly invincible. Iran does not need the US and its economy will boom as it sells its oil and gas to the East. I think all the panicked news reporting is playing into Iran’s hands, and ironically it appears to be coming from the right.

Posted by: Paul Wolf | Jan 4 2006 4:33 utc | 6

Off topic, but an interesting bath in another branch of the breathtakingly thorough “media” manipulation machine: who can read through this without
both laughing and wanting to cry? Apparently we can be sure that God has inspired W to do what he is doing, and even the U.S. constitution obviously must cede to sacred writ.
The outlook is so bleak as to be hopeless.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 4 2006 7:12 utc | 8

Not gonna happen, just a shit storm to shore up Georgie’s wanning manhood and maybe rattle Iran’s cage. (and in a wierd way, continuation of Condi’s limp accross Europe where she talked tough and didn’t get shit done!) If Iraq was a picnic, going to Tehran will be a Disco on Crack! The Baathist have shown what a devastated force with limited resources can do. Shia’s with all their religious, political, and economic clout accross the middle east, south east asia, and central asia are completely capable of carving up Uncle Sams ass in fine slices. Remember, these people have spiritual following, Saddam didn’t! You get a different quality of a religious nut with that.
Max

Posted by: Max Andersen | Jan 4 2006 10:14 utc | 10

So sure, (W) must be a believer, not that being a believer has anything to do with internalizing and or acting on the teachings of the bible in any real (fundamental) sense. We’ve all run into these types on some street corner somewhere, trying to evanga — lize those not walking fast enough. You know, the ones so intoxicated by their own conversion, so goddamned amazed that they themselves, usually going nowhere fast, have suddenly been transformed in a flash, from a garden variety looser — to the enlightened one — enlightened, no less by an up close and personal relationship to the creator of the entire universe. And, like WOW, just like that, you too can recieve the power. Just repeat, I will surrender, I will surrender — and be reborn as the agent of the lord, where my own perasonal fate is here to for reconciled as the work of god, where all evaluations of (my) actions can be reduced to intrepretation of scripture.
No doubt such an infintile projection of theology is what someone like (W) has embraced in all its crass and gutteral utility. Which is not to say that such an embrace is not felt (by him) to be genuine, and like the street corner born-again, the utility of surrender can often manifest in itself a transference of what ever particular demons happen to plague the subject. Which in a way is what has happened with (W), in that he has transferred his demons into our demons. All his demons; of privilege, contradiction, corruption, and bloodlust have been transferred upon the national psyche in such a way that find a resonence, or a re-awakining in the vast and latent impulsive exceptionalism in the american character.
The most troubling aspect of all this is that his beliefs are to some considerable extent reinforced through the success of his presidency, which recast his policy(s) as a matter of faith, which require its own brand of servitude to the faith as so defined (by him). He has managed to transfer his personal struggle with “faith” into a struggle of “faith” in the nation, where the nation has been (unwittingly, by him) put into mortal jeopardy.
(W)’s connection to god is predicated only in so far that he gets what he wants, barring no expense — for he must often reflect that how could I have gotten so far (and done so much damage) if it were’nt for gods directive — for in any reality based world, none of this would have been permitted to happen.

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 4 2006 10:53 utc | 12

Max – “not gonna happen”? Don’t be so sure. There won’t be an invasion, you’re right there, but a “surgical strike” against nuclear facilities – or suspected or supposed nuclear facilities – that’s a genuine possibility.
Don’t forget that the Israelis bombed the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981.
That was a very different situation- the Osirak reactor had not yet been fueled so no nuclear material was present, therefore there was no risk that bombing would disperse radioactive material into the environment.
It is hard to imagine that the Bush administration would risk bombing on-line nuclear facilities, thus potentially causing unimaginable public health and environmental harm– that is, if it weren’t the Bush administration, it would be hard to imagine it.

Posted by: JR | Jan 4 2006 18:19 utc | 14

Disco on Crack
bout spit up my coffee

Posted by: annie | Jan 4 2006 18:27 utc | 16

And this (Dec. 19, 2005):
The Putin and Pals Project
The whole Europe may soon find itself in Russia’s gas hands if Gazprom is successful in its expansion in the West.
(…)
The signing ceremony was held ten days before federal elections in Germany. The Chancellor’s party was already evidently losing, so Russians were in a hurry to sign the contract while Schroeder was in power. The ruling party failed indeed.
Once the stir about the new German government hushed and the former chancellor lost all chances to stay in power, it was announced that he would continue to supervise the construction of the North European Gas Pipeline: Schroeder took helm of the committee of the shareholders of the North European Gas Pipeline Company (NEGPC).
Switzerland-registered NEGPC will run the construction and management of the pipeline. Gazprom holds 51 percent in the company, German E.ON and BASF share 24.5 percent each…
(…)
Kommersant

Posted by: Noisette | Jan 4 2006 18:53 utc | 18

I didn’t do it – and stop talikng about my mother!!!

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jan 5 2006 8:55 utc | 20