THE COMING WAR….Zbigniew Brzezinski explains how war with Iran will come about:
A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD’s in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the “decisive ideological struggle.”
….Deplorably, the Administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East region has lately relied almost entirely on such sloganeering. Vague and inflammatory talk about “a new strategic context” which is based on “clarity” and which prompts “the birth pangs of a new Middle East” is breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world.
The Bush/Cheney team is plainly doing its best to provoke a casus belli that will justify a military response against Iran — an undertaking that the Iranian regime itself seems happy to help along. Democrats are mostly either playing along as well, or else sitting on their hands hoping that nothing will happen.
That’s a bad idea. Pretty speeches about how you regret voting for the Iraq war are all very fine, but the real test is how you react to the next big marketing campaign for war. It’s coming, it’s going to seem plausible, and it’s going to whip a lot of people into the usual frenzy. Any Democratic politician who hasn’t thought about how they’re going to deal with this is being willfully delusional.
