Let’s Scare the Hell Out of Iran

I don’t know how you feel about all this fear of Bush attacking Iran, but I’m getting tired of the media rhetoric. Anyone who has read a few of my posts would know that my opinion of Bush is pretty low (something like the worst President in over 300 years of our history), but all this made up fear is just getting to be too much.

Take David Ignatius’ article “Walking Into Iran's Trap” in the Oct 28 Washington Post. Ahmadenijad and his hard liners may very well be planning a trap by angering the U.S. to attack. But we haven’t attacked.

The Bush Administration has increased efforts to engage and expand the EU efforts to control Iran. It is not that the EU is an effective world player (they’re not), but that we should welcome any efforts by our government to rejoin our groups of mostly friendly nations.

More important is what the Bush Administration has done about Iran. First was declaring the Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist organization and second was to close the bank teller window to that Guard and several other Iranian groups that are probably the same Guard under cuter names. Since we believe that we are an honorable and moral nation, what could be more honorable or moral than to call the Revolutionary Guard what they really are and then to crimp their dollar support? This is the Guard that actively supports Hamas, Hezbollah, Shia killers in Iraq (probably Sunnis too), and supplies specialized weapons for killing our troops.

Just recently the Pentagon announced a new budget of beaucoup bucks to develop the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) and refit the B-2s to carry them. The Pentagon claims this weapon is for COIN support but anyone who is familiar with Bush smoke and mirrors knows this is not true. The bomb is a huge bunker buster with targets probably already selected in North Korea and Iraq (Syria, too?).

I worked on test and evaluation for Missile Defense the late 1980s. Called Star Wars then, I can vouch that the program was more sham than reality, but it did scare the USSR and contributed their collapse. I suspect it remains more sham than reality today, but It still scares Russia. Whether Missile Defense or the MOB are effective is not so important as how the target nations react.

I really like what this administration is doing to Iran. We call those in Iran what they really are, then we rattle our sabers a little, and then we buy some scary weapons whose aim is very clear. At this point there is little we can actually do about Iran, except scare them to the negotiating table.

One caveat. What if Igantius and the other fear writers are right? Does Bush really intend to attack Iran without open provocation? I hope not and I have to admit Bush’s track record is scary. Until then and if we don’t attack until our Army and Marines have recovered from Iraq/Afghanistan, scaring the hell out of Iran is kind of fun.