Sounds serious.
No planes screaming overhead.
Yet.
Is it Ezekiel time?
30 count em 30 years with the gubbermink.
They do not know the difference between Shit and Shinola.
They are coverning their collective fat asses.
If there was something cooking that was able to be responded to, there would be total silence.
The first nuclear bombs will be delivered by SUV. Not in the sandbox where you are, but home to our wimin and children.
Make sure we don't die in vain.
To paraphrase Adm Halsley, make it so the koran is only read in Hell (where it was composed)...
Report: Cheney Aide Clearing Path To Bomb Iran
And from IraqSlogger:
***************************************
By ROBERT Y. PELTON Posted 2 hr. 21 min. ago
The U.S. State Department has announced that it is shutting down the the Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group it created in March 2006.
The purpose of the group was to damage Iran's economy by pressuring banks to cut credit and limiting their military capability by opposing the sale of military equipment to Tehran's army and supporters.
This comes at a time when rhetoric and actions from Iran has become more strident and forceful. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has pressed forward with both his nuclear enrichment plan, anti-west rhetoric and continuing dismissal of the U.S. intentions in the region.
The shutdown was explained as being part of a reorganization but the Boston Globe reports that;
A senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said the group was shut down because of a widespread public perception that it was designed to enact regime change. State Department officials have said the focus of the Iran-Syria group was persuading the two regimes to change their behavior, not toppling them.
The elimination of the group (which only met weekly) coincides with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice launched a major initiative to engage Iran and Syria in a regional effort to stabilize Iraq, reversing longstanding U.S. policy against high-level contact with the countries. Rice will meet with Iranian leaders on May 28th in Baghdad, the first time since the 1979 that Iranian and U.S. officials have met in high level talks.
The Boston Globe's Farah Stockman interviews government researcher Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist who provides insight;
"I think the rationale for that group was promoting regime change, and Rice is going in a much different direction from that," Katzman said. "The regime-change school within the administration has really gotten quite a bit weaker."
In a "good cop, bad cop" move it appears that according to ABC News that President Bush authorized the CIA to begin a "coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions." Despite upcoming talks President Bush called for Rice to convince European nations to impose tougher sanctions on Iran in his May 24th reaction to Iran's nuclear plans.
The reality is that covert elements of Special Forces and CIA paramilitaries have been training insurgents inside and outside Iran for some time. Internal sabotage would be a very effective tool against a country that relies primarily on the shipment of it's petroleum products to outside markets.
David Samuels writing in The Atlantic mentions a laundry list of violent acts that have taken place inside Iraq including a bomb in Zahedan, Baluchistan on February 14; the death of the Iranian scientist Ardashir Hosseinpour, who worked on uranium enrichment at the Isfahan nuclear facility; and "the defection of a high-ranking Iranian general named Ali Asgari, a former deputy minister of defense who was also the Revolutionary Guard officer responsible for training and supplying Hezbollah during its war against the Israelis in southern Lebanon in the 1980s"
Iran has a number of outside enemies in addition to the U.S., chief among them Israel, Saudi Arabia and Sunni regions and Iraq. Despite Iran's stern coordinated outward image similar ethnic, tribal and other structures found inside Iraq can be inside Iran that an outside force could use to crack the monolithic Persian Shia structure. The truth is that ethnic Persians make up only 51% of Iran. It is not surprising that the U.S would take advantage of these ethnic minorities to engage in violent acts inside Iran, and accordingly it is not surprising that Iran would support insurgent groups inside Iraq as payback.
Iran has a history forged by strong enemies ranging from the Greeks to the Romans to the Ottomans to the Iraqis. Its bellicose nature comes from its position as a Shia bastion, a wellspring of unique culture and now being an island in a hostile sea of U.S. influenced nations. Iran is an intensely youthful country with most of its population being under 30 providing a fertile audience for change. These dynamics combined with the strategic importance of Iran's geographical control over middle east oil, its nuclear program and bellicose statements make it a high priority target for the current administration and arguably any future U.S. administrations. it is not surprising that the current petroleum industry savvy leadership of the United States sees the opportunity to overthrow the theocratic government and the need to install a U.S. friendly system as urgent and compelling.
There is a deadline to Rice's diplomatic moves and there is a sense of countdown to dealing with Iran's constant truculence and instransigent resistance in joining the world stage as a modern, non-combative player.
It appears that as the Bush administration comes to the end of its functional life and at a time that the U.S. military infrastructure has been stressed the diplomatic option becomes more appealing. But there is no guarantee that a navy and air based attack on Iran's infrastructure combined with Special Forces led uprisings could not be a desperate "Hail Mary" move to shift attention from a failed 5 year expedition to pacify Iraq.