One More Notch Up On the Irano-mometer

Seymour Hersh's latest installment in his series on the Iran Shenanigans reports President Bush has created a Pentagon panel to plan an air campaign on Iran which can be kicked off within 24 hours of a White House order to attack. This means the US military is now shifting into its highest state of readiness. Along the way Hersh does a good job of explaining a revamped Mid-east policy which resembles an advanced case of diplomatic Strip Twister, an appropriate image for a "strange bedfellows" course in which the US is getting the Saudis intimate with Israel to tag-team Iran. The idea is to beat the Shiite-Iranian genie back into the bottle uncorked by, you guessed it, the US invasion of Iraq, a monumental screw-up which has implications for all of us who have grown fond of vehicles and food. As for the Shiites, you have to hand it to them in the dumb luck department. Population-wise, they make up only 10% of muslims, and are viewed as superstitious, barely civilized pagans by the Sunni majority. They had a strange knack for parking themselves over most of the world's oil.

Thus it comes to pass that Israel and Saudi Arabia are dating. Geopolitics is a lot like high school, only every student gets their own army, and Israelis and Saudis playing kissy-face does not make for a very convincing version of West Side Story. You just know the romance will blow up, and even if you're not sure how, it's bound to be spectacular. You'd also think there would be some mainstream gossip generated over this unprecedented development, but sadly, you have to go read about it in The New Yorker, a snooty literary magazine no one west of the Hudson River can safely display in public. At the moment, I'm imagining Dick Cheney as my school principal, and it's not a pretty image.

Hersh's article also mentions that BushCo is pumping cash into Lebanon to undermine Hezbollah's influence there, so much of the moolah is winding up in the hands of radical Sunni groups under the philosophical banner of Al-Qaeda. Which means they're financially linked to much of the Iraqi insurgency. Yes, you read correctly. (What part of "pulchritudinous" do you not understand??) The US has started to actually fund the major insurgency in Iraq. Which, of course, is so stupid it makes an attack on Iran look sensible by comparison, and, in a twisted way, provides the geometric proof of its necessity in the minds of the White House, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Neo-Clowns. Otherwise known as the people who rule us and spend our taxes.

The London Telegraph reports Israel is asking Washington if it can fly over Iraq to make airstrikes against Iran. Hmm...funny, a couple years ago I heard it rather vehemently repeated that Iraq had won its sovereignty as a nation. The reporter filing the story, Con Coughlin, was a neocon mouthpiece for the neo-clowns in the run-up to the Iraq war, so the Bogosity Detector is buzzing, but a Kuwaiti newspaper reports that country has agreed to host Israeli fighters on their way to light up Iran. This is key, because in most scenarios, Israel will hit Iran before the US does.

The NeoCons and the State Department have managed to box themselves in to a very tight corner. Rather than admit they're raging, incompetent morons who are losing the very Clash of Civilizations they dreamt up. They'd much rather lash out in frustration.