I think not, at least not in the way that those asserting that Bush will bomb Iran have been arguing. I make my case in a piece titled “Why Bush Won’t Bomb Iran” that ran as the lead on Salon.com yesterday.
I worry a great deal about various players to loyal to Dick Cheney and/or to the IRGC/Al Quds force in Iran trying to trigger a quick escalation of conflict that circumvents the national security decision-making structure that surrounds Bush — or alternatively Iran’s Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei.
What may be cooking is an effort to trigger purposefully an accidental war, but I don’t believe that Bush is part of that. Views at Salon.com in reaction to my piece have been running about 3 to 1 against my perspective,
Here are some others who have commented on the subject:
Scott MacLeod at Time
Julian Borger at The Guardian
Thomas P.M. Barnett’s Blog
Christy Hardin Smith at Fire Dog Lake
Scott Horton at Antiwar.com Radio
Matthew Yglesias
Taylor Marsh
Brian Beutler
Blake Hounshell at Foreign Policy‘s Passport Blog
John Byrne at Raw Story
William Hartung at TPM Cafe
Ezra Klein at the American Prospect‘s Tapped
Moira Whalen at Democracy Arsenal
SusanUnPC at No Quarter
Tom Engelhardt at The Nation
Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish
There are many I have missed — but the discourse and further commentary on these blogs challenge and complement the arguments I make. I can’t think of a topic more important to seriously work through right now.
For other sources on the debate, here is a roster of linked pieces at Tailrank.com, Bloglines.com, and Technorati.
I’ll have more on this later — and I look forward to constructive exchanges with readers about this subject. And yes, I know many of you disagree.
But it’s the last paragraph of the article that we really should be organizing against and exposing:
We should also worry about the kind of scenario David Wurmser floated, meaning an engineered provocation. An “accidental war” would escalate quickly and “end run,” as Wurmser put it, the president’s diplomatic, intelligence and military decision-making apparatus. It would most likely be triggered by one or both of the two people who would see their political fortunes rise through a new conflict — Cheney and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
That kind of war is much more probable and very much worth worrying about.
More soon.
— Steve Clemons
13 comments on “Will Bush Bomb Iran?”