http://www.alternet.org/story/47564 /
War on Iran: Stop Bush Before He Starts
By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted February 3, 2007.
Bush is following the same course he chose in the run-up to war in Iraq: he insists that war is "a last resort" yet puts in motion the engines of war; he times the release of alarming intelligence reports for maximum political effect; he brushes aside doubts and warnings; he then presents war as unavoidable or a fait accompli.
Despite the painful lessons from the Iraq War disaster -- including more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers dead and Iraq torn apart by sectarian civil war -- the key institutions of Washington, particularly the Congress and the press, are playing similar roles, too.
The capital again is possessed of an air of unreality as the clock ticks down to a likely military showdown with Iran. Though the documentary record is now clear that Bush set his sights on war in Iraq a year or so before the actual invasion, the President is still believed when he insists now that he wants a diplomatic solution with Iran.
Democratic congressional leaders politely accepted Bush's new war council -- from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the new regional commander Adm. William Fallon -- while the only harsh questioning came from pro-war Republican Sen. John McCain to the departing general for Iraq, George Casey, for not making Bush's Iraq scheme work.
Meanwhile, the Senate has tied itself up for more than three weeks quibbling about the wording of a non-binding resolution of disapproval about Bush's troop escalation in Iraq. The Senate is finally expected to begin debate next week on compromise language that limits criticism to the narrow issue of the Iraq troop "surge."
Washington's drift on the Iraq resolution rolls on with almost no one pointing at the gathering speed of Bush's confrontation with Iran.
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