unrepentant old hippie

The Puppetmaster plans a coup

Elroon at Rants from the Rookery posted about this a couple of days ago, but it sufficiently alarmed the crap out of me that I wanted to screech about it here (lateness to the party notwithstanding).

The White House is being divided by infighting over the approach to Iran policy -- between those who favour diplomacy and those who want to turn the place into a big sheet of glass. The warmongers will not be denied:

"There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.

On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney's team and acolytes -- who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy. (...)

However, the Department of Defense and national intelligence sector are also preparing for hot conflict. They believe that they need to in order to convince Iran's various power centers that the military option does exist.

But this is worrisome. The person in the Bush administration who most wants a hot conflict with Iran is Vice President Cheney. The person in Iran who most wants a conflict is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force would be big winners in a conflict as well -- as the political support that both have inside Iran has been flagging.

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument." (...)

"... Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the "right decision" when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands."

"End run strategy around the President"? "Tie the President's hands"? Cheney is determined to get what he wants, a conflict with Iran. His strategy also involves collusion with Israel, a scenario in which Israel would fire some cruise missiles at Iran, Iran would retaliate by attacking US forces in the gulf, and the diplomatic option would be off the table. This strategy is worrisome for a few reasons, not the least of which is that it willingly sets up the US military in the gulf as targets. Cheney wants Iran to attack the US military? But more disturbing still are the longer-term implications -- a conflict between the US and Iran might bring Russia and/or China into the picture.

Impeach this bastard, or at least put him in a Home for the Criminally Insane.