We’ve been hearing conservative bluster for months about the alleged need for a military confrontation in Iran. As it turns out, we may be dealing with more than just bluster.
Air Force Col. Sam [tag]Gardiner[/tag] (Ret.), for example, appeared on CNN last night and suggested, “We are conducting military operations inside [tag]Iran[/tag] right now. The evidence is overwhelming.” That evidence includes:
1) The House Committee on Emerging Threats recently called on State and Defense Department officials to testify on whether U.S. forces were in Iran. The officials didn’t come to the hearing.
2) “We have learned from Time magazine today that some U.S. naval forces had been alerted for deployment. That is a major step.”
3) “The plan has gone to the [tag]White House[/tag]. That’s not normal planning. When the plan goes to the White House, that means we’ve gone to a different state.”
On the second point, referencing Time magazine’s cover story this week, the article certainly has an interesting scoop that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
The first message was routine enough: a “Prepare to Deploy” order sent through naval communications channels to a submarine, an Aegis-class cruiser, two minesweepers and two mine hunters. The orders didn’t actually command the ships out of port; they just said to be ready to move by Oct. 1. But inside the Navy those messages generated more buzz than usual last week when a second request, from the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), asked for fresh eyes on long-standing U.S. plans to blockade two Iranian oil ports on the Persian Gulf.
It certainly sounds like something fairly serious is going on, doesn’t it? As the article notes, the military planning and the White House’s agenda “would seem to suggest that a much discussed — but until now largely theoretical — prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran.”
Well, maybe.
As Slate’s Fred Kaplan noted, [tag]Bush[/tag] may be getting ready for yet another war, or he may be using the threat of one to spur negotiations. Or maybe both.
The two are not mutually exclusive, especially since various factions within the administration are split on the issue. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seems genuinely to be doing what secretaries of state tend to do — seek a diplomatic solution. Vice President Dick Cheney seems to be doing what he tends to do — heighten the confrontation.
Faced with internecine conflicts of this sort, President Bush has a striking tendency to avoid making a decision and to let the factions fight it out. It’s possible, in other words, that the administration is playing both approaches — mobilizing as a tool of diplomatic pressure and mobilizing as an act of impending warfare — not as a coordinated strategy but as parallel actions, each of which will follow its inexorable course.
Once the weapons are in place, the airstrikes wouldn’t follow automatically; the [tag]president[/tag] would have to give the order. But if the attack is ready to go, and if the Iranians are still thumbing their noses, would this president call it off and start over? It’s best not to face the situation to begin with.
Stay tuned.