Some folks are still concerned about War on Iran.
Zbigniew Brzezinski interviewed by Laura Rosen in Mother Jones:
The president is determined to string [Iraq] out and hand this war over to his successor, but he is at the same time determined to try to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem before he leaves office, and I am afraid, very seriously afraid, that the conjunction of the two—continuous conflict in Iraq and impatience over Iran—may produce a situation whereby before he leaves office he plunges us into some sort of semi-accidental and semi-deliberate conflict with Iran.
…
I don’t see the administration expanding the conflict the way it started the conflict with Iraq. [..] I think far more likely is a series of incidents, aggravations, collisions, provocations which are mutual, a negotiating posture which doesn’t give Iran any leeway, and then some explosion, some collision that creates a great deal of emotion in the country, conceivably even a terrorist act which is credibly blamed on the Iranians, and then there is a patriotic wave and a military action launched before the election, which actually inflames the country in a wave of kind of hysterical patriotism that benefits the Republicans.Q: What about the potential for [an Al Qaida] surprise happening to the U.S.?
ZB: I wonder who knows that Al Qaeda in one of the strategic documents actually has said that an American-Iranian collision would be of great strategic benefit to Al Qaeda’s cause. So here is a party that might even have an interest in provoking such a collision.
Leon Hadar, a research fellow with the Cato Institute, writes in Asia Times Online:
At the minimum, Bush wants to be recalled as someone who "kicked some ass" in the Persian Gulf before leaving office.
That doesn’t mean an all-out war with Iran or even an attack on its suspected nuclear installations. If you followed the recent bizarre encounter between the US Navy and the Iranians in the straits of Hormuz, you get an idea of the opportunities that are opened to the Bushies if and when they decide to orchestrate or exploit a crisis in the Persian Gulf that could lead to an American retaliation against an Iranian "provocation".
[…]
Iran will hold parliamentary elections on March 14, 2008, and you don’t have to be an expert in Iranian politics to figure out that the political parties associated with President Ahmadinejad who has been under attack at home for his mismanagement of the country’s economy could benefit politically from rising tensions with between Tehran and Washington.
Interestingly enough, it’s not inconceivable that by early March the Iranian political calendar will intersect with the American one, when we’ll probably know by then who the Democrats and the Republicans have nominated as their presidential candidate. [..] Mix
American nationalism aimed at long-time adversary, Revolutionary Iran, the
threat of Islamo-Fascism and the support for Israel and the role of its
American friends in US electoral politics, and you understand why Obama or
Hillary won’t allow themselves to sound less hawkish than John McCain or Mitt
Romney.
[…]
[Israel is clearly] concerned that the Bush Administration and Congress may lack the will to confront Tehran over the nuclear military program which, they insist, is alive and well. So if you’re in the shoes of the Israeli prime minister, you will probably conclude that Israel has a narrow window of opportunity extending until the end of 2008 – before Bushcheney, Likud’s best friend in Washington, leaves office – to take military action against Iran.
[…]
If these scenarios sound improbable – like terrorist flying planes into the World Trade Center or the United States invading Iraq – it’s probably a failure of imagination on your part.
A new crisis in the Gulf would be perfect to distract the voters from the economic mess.
One more year of Bushcheney – and it isn’t over until it’s over …