The product role out of the War on Iran is gaining speed. At Juan Cole’s group blog Professor Rubin says a friend told him about a recent talk:
They [the source’s institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the
word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign
for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated
with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary,
Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the
airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which
a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get
majority support for this–they want something like 35-40 percent
support, which in their book is "plenty."
The campaign will not jump start after Labor Day, it has already begun. It makes four points:
- Iran is building nuclear weapons
- Iran is killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq by arming the resistance
- Iran is a threat to Israel
- An attack on Iran is militarily possible and will achieve a regime change
All four are demonstrably false, but that will not matter.
Bush’s recent speech to the American Legion and the accompanying ‘fact sheet’ include the first three of the above points. The last point will be made by some neocons. A few days ago Raw Story peddled a British study that claims a ‘successful’ strategic bombing campaign against Iran is possible. "Baloney" says Col. Lang. He adds:
The current IO campaign against Iran makes it seem more and more plausible that such an onslaught will be attempted.
Via Jim Lobe we learn:
On the heels of President George W. Bush’s latest threats against Iran for its “murderous activities” in Iraq, the Weekly Standard has obligingly published a 30-page report by Kimberly Kagan, spouse of Surge co-architect and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Frederick Kagan and director of an entity called The Institute for the Study of War, entitled “Iran’s Proxy War Against the United States and the Iraqi Government”.
In another post Lobe reports:
Just four days after the American Enterprise Institute will launch its September 6 “All or Nothing” campaign to save the Surge, it will debut “Freedom Scholar” Michael Ledeen’s forthcoming book, “The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots’ Quest for Destruction” (St. Martin’s Press), a rehash of neo-con arguments for “regime change” – by military force, if necessary – in Tehran.
And another part of the campaign is announced:
“This October 22-26, I am declaring Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” declared David Horowitz Tuesday in a friendly interview on www.FrontpageMag.com, one of Horowitz’s many front groups. “I will hold demonstrations and protests, teach-ins and sit-ins on more than 100 college campuses. Our theme will be the Oppression of Women in Islam and the threat posed by the Islamic crusade against the West.”
After a few month of such coordinated drumbeat, late this year or early next year, most of the public will be convinced that an attack is inevitable. The Democrats in Congress are either already convinced or have stopped to fight against it.
The only hope we might have is that parts of the Pentagon will somehow sabotage this new war. There is already some mutiny about the continuation of the ‘surge’. The Army and Marines folks will be against an Iran campaign. The evangelical Air Force will support it if only to show off the ‘value’ of its useless toys. But even the unlikely event of a few generals leaving in protest will not make a difference.
Another unlikely hope is that the main stream media will refuse to be the echo chamber for this campaign, fact check the accusations against Iran and point out that these are wrong. They could also report that the idea of a winable air campaign is lunatic. Fat chance that they will do so. War sells.
Russia and China could probably prevent an attack. But why should they. They will stop a war justifying UN resolution and then stand by to see their biggest competitor tearing himself down in another unwinable ‘preemptive’ war.
Still the real big loser will again not be the U.S., but the Iranian people.