'A Heartbeat Away' From War With Iran and Pakistan

A Good Article
By Justin Raimondo

"As the American people amuse themselves with the illusion that they have any say in the way they are presently governed, our rulers are moving toward war. Two recent incidents underscore the imminence of this prospect.

The Iranian "provocation" in the straits of Hormuz has set the stage for a new "crisis" manufactured wholly by the War Party, the rationale for which is uncritically accepted by our passive "mainstream" media. We are expected to believe that five minuscule speedboats "menaced" the USS Hopper, a destroyer armed with missiles; the cruiser USS Port Royal; and the USS Ingraham, a frigate. That's rather like five gnats "menacing" a trio of elephants. Oh, but that's not all. In addition to intercepting the American flotilla, CNN reports the Iranians supposedly issued explicit threats.....

In any event, this is a provocation, all right – on the part of the Bush administration. As our president travels to Israel, the fulcrum of our policy of Mideast expansionism, there can be little doubt that this is all part of a carefully stage-managed effort to portray Iran as an aggressor – a scenario made doubly ironic when one considers that the U.S. has sent two aircraft carriers into the Gulf and has massed 150,000 troops in neighboring Iraq, where Washington accuses the Iranians of "interference."........

The commander of one of the U.S. warships has been quoted as saying that they were "a heartbeat away" from opening fire on their Iranian tormentors, and that just about sums up the chances of an armed conflict breaking out – we're an incident away from going to war with Tehran, and there is every indication that the administration is marshaling its forces, political and diplomatic as well as military, to launch an assault before Bush leaves office......

.....George W. Bush still has the power to change the political landscape with a single command, and it seems fairly certain – to me, at least – that he intends to do so. Perhaps he can be prevented from taking this fatal course by military commanders and rational elements in the national security bureaucracy; perhaps not. In any case, recent events – and especially this ominous Middle East trip, which you can bet has little to do with a "peace plan" – ought to make us all very nervous."