The Bet

by Scott Creighton

During a roadtrip from New Orleans to a jobsite just outside Baton Rouge, I and a client of mine, had occasion to talk about many things. He is an educated business owner, too caught up in business and the business of life to delve into researching all the news that The News isn’t reporting anymore.

That’s the domain of people like me, I suppose. My lot in life as reward for a lifetime of ill-conceived transgressions.

He’s a good man; works dilegently and takes care of his family. And he is quite sure I am either completely crazy… or that I am right.  So we entered into an agreement of sorts.

I had told him some time ago that the forces that move this once great nation of ours were going to push us into another war of choice with Iran, by using pre-emptivestrikes that create collateral damage so that Iran is forced to retaliate.

My prediction was nothing special. I read AntiWar, CounterPunch, and others and I have been an avid reader of Scott Ritter’s work. He predicted the coming storm in Iran long ago.

The agreement was this; that since I had told him that we would attack bases in Iran sometime this spring, and certainly before the Nov. elections (to boost mcCain’s victory credibility in the MSM), if they did not attack Iran by then, I would admit that my entire perspective is flawed… and I would end this site.

Now there’s a bet huh? Give up the only thing I have consistently done with any real passion for the past 10 years.

His end? When they launch the pre-emptive attacks, before the Nov. election, he would have to start a site… and maintain it… just like this one.

He would have to realign his perspective of America and add another voice to the choir.

Now why would I make a bet like this? Well, that’s obvious… because I have no chance of losing.

(So Jeff, if you’re secretly peaking at the site, read the following article and then the next one I am posting on Conyers May 8th letter to President Bush. And pick out a nifty blogger name for your new site.)

Why All Our Efforts Won’t Stop An Attack On Iran

by Gary Leupp, from Counter Punch, here.

I read tonight a brief article by Philip Giraldi posted on the American Conservative website: “War with Iran Might Be Closer than You Think.”

“There is considerable speculation,” writes the former CIA officer, “and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the NationalSecurity Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods [Revolutionary Guards]-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants.  The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran.”

Giraldi provides details. He reports that the meeting came as “the direct result” of Hizbollah advances in Lebanon in recent days. (Recall that the U.S. State Department lists the Shiite organization Hizbollahas “terrorist” and as a tool of both Iran and Baathist Syria. In fact it is probably the country’s largest and most popular politicalparty and has built significant ties with some Christian and Sunni groups. Hizbollah’srapid seizure of the Muslim sections of Beirut, accomplished with little resistance, may have been deliberately provoked by the U.S.-backed quasi-government of Lebanon when the latter shut down the party’s private communications network.)

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, according to Giraldi, was the only senior official present urging delay. That suggests that the military is not enthusiastic about a widened war in Southwest Asia, but that the other regular members of the NSC (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley as well as President Bush and Vice President Cheney) are willing to provoke just that.

They will do what they do with the solid backing of Congress, the presidential candidates, and the mainstream press which if history is our guide will for a time shape shockingly malleable public opinion. Yes, I fear that we (most of us) will be fooled again.

The Congress has passed near-unanimous resolutions against Iran, endorsing the administration’s unprecedented designation of a component of a nation’s military as a “terrorist organization.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be on board the program. Recall how after the Democratic victory two years ago she capitulated to AIPACby stripping from a military spending bill the requirement that Bush seek Congressional approval before attacking Iran. (That was after she’d pointedly declared that Bush-Cheney impeachment hearings were “off the table.” And after Rep. John Conyers, head of the House Judiciary Committee and sometimes maverick, bitterly disappointed those pinning their hopes on him by going along with the Democratic leadership’s line. And after the Democrats had made it clear they weren’t serious about ending the war they’d been elected to end—showing us how very well the democratic system works in this country.)

John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton (all of whom agree that an attack on Iran is “on the table”) will publicly approve. The media will call upon the same “military analysts”/military industry consultants who have been disseminating Pentagon propaganda for pay since 2002 to explain why the attack is justified and necessary. The main talking-point has been decided: “Iran is killing American soldiers in Iraq.” Public opinion polls will show the public divided, but a majority in support of the action because, regardless of their feelings about the war in Iraq, they want to “support our troops” and after all, Iran was asking for it by interfering in Iraq and attacking us.

All the “exposure” that so many journalists and academics have tried to provide for years will have failed to prevent another illegalattack on a sovereign nation based on lies and bound to produce more outrage against the U.S. throughout the world. A cruise missile strike on an alleged training camp site won’t end there. It will be designed to provoke an Iranian response and legitimate further U.S. attacks, not only on Iran but Syria and Lebanon, probably in coordination with Israel. Some in Israel badly want the U.S. to behead all their main enemies in the region before their good friend George Bush leaves the White House. If that means regional chaos—clashes between Iranian and U.S. forces, the fall of the Malikipuppet regime in Baghdad (which actually is friendly withTehran and says it’s playing a positive role in Iraq), the collapse of Shiite cooperation with the U.S. occupation, Iran-Iraq border clashes, U.S. forays into Iranian territory, the closing of ranks in fractious Iran against the imperialist assault on their country—so be it!

If it means renewed war in Lebanon including Israeli invasion, an Iranian shift from supporting U.S. puppet Karzai to Iran’s longtime enemy the Taliban in Afghanistan, active Syrian support for Sunni forces in Iraq, the disintegration of the fragile Sunni-”Coalition” alliance against al-Qaeda in western Iraq as the region descends into a Shiite-Sunni war—so be it! If it means the use of nuclear weapons against Iran to try to cow its leaders and people into accepting a U.S.-Israeli blueprint for the region—so be it! If it means the unthinkable in the U.S.-a return to the draft—so be it! All of this will at least have prevented the “nuclear holocaust” that the neocons, Cheney and Bush have been insisting the Iranians plan to inflict on the Jewish state unless they are stopped now. (No matter that all the U.S. intelligence agencies in their National Intelligence Estimate on Iran published late last year agreed that Iran does not now have a nuclear weapons program. And no matter that the Ahmadinejad quote about “wiping Israel off the map” has been exposed as a lie by Juan Cole and others.)

If Benjamin Netanyahu is Israeli prime minister at the time of the planned attack on Iran, a time of apocalyptic confusion might be the perfect opportunity to empty the West Bank of its Palestinians. This NSC agreement “in principle” to attack Iran is an agreement to risk all these ramifications, confident that the press and politicians will cooperate.