Bush's Crackdown on Baghdad: A Step Towards Attacking Iran

By Mike Whitney

"Even a cursory review of Bush’s speech shows that the president is less concerned with “security” in Baghdad than he is with plans to attack Iran. Paul Craig Roberts was correct in his article yesterday when he questioned whether all the hoopla over a surge was just “an orchestrated distraction” to draw attention away from the real war plan. (“Troop Escalation and Iran”, Information Clearinghouse”)

Apparently, it is.....

Iran had set up the embassy at the request of the Kurdish Governor-General who was not informed of US intentions to raid the facility and kidnap its employees. The American soldiers confiscated computers and documents just 5 hours after Bush had threatened Iran in his address to the nation.

Clearly, Bush is looking for a way to provoke a military confrontation with Iran. Now he has 5 Iranian hostages at his disposal to help him achieve that goal.....

“Seek and destroy”? Is that the plan?

A region-wide conflagration with results as uncertain as they are in Iraq?

So far, there’s no solid evidence that Iran is “providing material support for attacks on American troops.” All the same, the administration has consistently used “material support” as the basis for preemptive war. In fact, the so-called Bush Doctrine is predicated on the assumption that the US is free to attack whoever it chooses if it perceives a threat to its national security. The normal rules of self defense or “imminent danger” no longer apply......

Bush also intimated that he would strike out at other “armed militias” in Iraq; an indication that US forces are planning an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army. The Shiite cleric, al Sadr, is despised by the Washington Warlords and is described by the Pentagon as “the biggest threat to Iraq’s security.” Even so, al-Sadr has operatives placed strategically throughout the al-Maliki government (and within the Green Zone) and attacking him now would only make the occupation more perilous. In fact, an attack on the Mehdi Army could create a situation where Shiite militias cut off vital supply lines from the south making occupation virtually untenable.

Bush has decided to abandon all sense of caution and blunder ahead taking on all adversaries without concern for the consequences. It is a prescription for disaster....."

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