Sy Hersh with more required reading, the kind of thing should just give all thinking people chills.
Let's hit the high points. Bold emphasis below is mine.
Link: Annals of National Security: Shifting Targets: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker.
Annals of National Security
Shifting Targets
The Administration’s plan for Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh October 8, 2007
In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran. “Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people,” Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. “The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased. . . . The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And, until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops.” He then concluded, to applause, “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”
[Bush is talking about Shia extremists? Like he knows anything about Shia extremists? The guy didn't even know the difference between Shia and Sunni before he went to war against Iraq! That embarrassing truth ought to keep that man from ever uttering the word "Shia" or "Sunni" ever again in this life.
You know, they must have been holed up for their August vacation hatching this brilliant PR offensive, waiting until after August, because, according to Andy Card, "When you’re rolling out a new product onto the market, you don’t do it in August—you wait until September."]
The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants.
[I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that there is "suddenly" a new head to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (General Peter Pace is out... too close to Rummy to be linked to a PR campaign that they want to be met with more than outright guffaws).]
The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.
The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq.
During a secure videoconference that took place early this summer, the President told Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, that he was thinking of hitting Iranian targets across the border and that the British “were on board.” At that point, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interjected that there was a need to proceed carefully, because of the ongoing diplomatic track. Bush ended by instructing Crocker to tell Iran to stop interfering in Iraq or it would face American retribution.
At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. If Democrats objected, the Administration could say, “Bill Clinton did the same thing; he conducted limited strikes in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Baghdad to protect American lives.” The former intelligence official added, “There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ‘You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.’ But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.”
[...]
[You know, this should give every Republican candidate for office out there deep and meaningful pause, mid-goose-step, over where their loyalties lie. The Bush administration sees them all as expendable.
I don't know about you, but that speaks volumes about the "scorched earth" GOP tactics undertaken at the talking points direction of the White House the past 7 years. While observing those tactics myself over the years, I thought, these idiots, they either think the world is going to end before the end of Bush's run of office, or they FULLY expect the GOP to NEVER be out of power again.
My mistake was thinking that they were REPUBLICAN scorched earth politics. The realpolitic here knows no party loyalty, yet demands absolute authority over all "followers," the fanatical true believers marching behind the Machiavellis in the White House.
That the White House is ready to scorch the earth of its own party just shows the exact same strategy turned inward, and that's the part that speaks volumes. It says: THE WHITE HOUSE SEES ITSELF AS PERMANENTLY IN POWER. A PARTY UNTO ITSELF.
Consider that idea for a moment. This isn't just Caesar getting ready to cross the Rubicon or nuke Foggy Bottom. Sure, I can invoke Godwin's Law and call Iran Poland to Iraq's Czechoslovakia. I don't think either is that far off base.
But it is more than a lame duck administration which jettisons its own party and continues to act with the same power-mongering, arrogance, and bullying, as if its power is permanent, and will be retained in perpetuity. What does the White House, and Cheney's office in particular, know that we don't know?
Because by their own behavior, it's a poor lie, a pitifully transparent lie, as pathetic as their stupid PR campaigns launched in September, ham-handed, graceless, only viable because party line threats force spineless news networks to repeat them, endlessly, as talking points.
Surely we can see underneath the PR drumbeats for war against Iran for what they really are: a way to up the ante, consolidate power in an imperial permanent war president, who will not become a permanent war president so much as a holder of an office for those who control him as war footing and posturing controls the presidential campaigns all next year, war news carefully timed to bump opposition and/or embarrassing news out of the headlines through the entire electoral season.
And if the polls are looking dim, well, there can always be a declaration of martial law. That's what I see through the transparency. A scorched earth approach that intends to never be out of power. It will hold on to power legitimately as long as it can, and if it looks like these tin horn dictators will be legitimately turned out of power, "something" will "happen" to prevent that from ever happening, to prevent the election from taking place.
I know I'm not the only one thinking this unthinkable thing. These folks may not leave the White House willingly, except under police escort. I hope to god I am wrong, for all our sakes.
Comments