Can Bush attack again?

Though the balance of reason weighs against the US waging war on Iran, since when has the Bush administration appeared reasonable?

By Galal Nassar
Al-Ahram Weekly

"......Is a fourth war really slated for the Gulf or is it all part of an orchestrated pressure to compel Iran to capitulate to Western demands to halt its nuclear development programme? This article takes an in-depth look at the harbingers of war and the obstacles to war, obstacles that may ultimately gain the upper hand if reports that secret negotiations have been ongoing between Washington and Tehran for five years are anything to go by.......

DANGEROUS ECHOES: That said, since the Iranian agreement with the IAEA in July 2007 over inspections of its nuclear facilities the most dangerous threat to a peaceful solution resides in intelligence errors and strategic miscalculations on the part of both sides. US military leaders, for example, might reach the conclusion that they could destroy Tehran's military capacities, which would give impetus to the position of American hawks that a military solution leading to regime change is the only way to deal with the Iranian crisis. The Iranians, meanwhile, might be too complacent in their belief that the US is mired and on the verge of defeat in Iraq and that it could not summon the will or ability to wage another war. The current administration in the US is not one to shrink from considerable risk, not to say recklessness.

In sum, while US-Israeli threats should not be underestimated, the situation as it stands seems to favour the protraction of a state of no-war, no-peace. Overall, the factors against war seem to outweigh the factors propelling towards war. But since when has logic had the upper hand in determining the behaviour of the Bush administration? It is perhaps again the unknown quantity of Bush and his neo-con allies that, above all, feeds the spectre of Gulf War IV."