Sy Hersh has been reporting for at least three years on U.S. plans to attack Iran. Given Sy's track record as an investigative journalist, one assumes his sources (my guess - rational U.S. military officers) are quite credible.
Ahmadineajad is no dummy, and understands that what governor bush wants (or is told he wants) governor bush gets, especially when it involves raining bombs down on brown people riding camels. He simply has to assume a U.S. attack on Iran is inevitable (that's what I would assume, were I holding his power, authority, and responsibilty). Remember too, the man is a professor of history, who STILL teaches, while holding down his 9-5 day job.
Anyone conversant with the American invasion and occupation of Vietnam would conclude that where's there's a U.S. will, there's a U.S. way, and that our way, in fact the rational of the political and military elites, has been to demonstrate to the world our military might. Assume Iranian political leadership is not only rational, but also wise, and well understands its enemy, the cheney administration.
How to counter an inevitable U.S. attack?
With a preemptive strike. Capture some British (definetly NOT American) sailors, threaten to charge them with war crimes, get the international cameras rolling, get the world to hold its collective breath. GIVE the U.S. its causus belli, BEFORE the U.S. is ready to attack (we must support our allies -- poodle dog tony blair needs us in his nation's hour of despair).
You attack first. But, what kind of an attack is this? Capturing British sailors in waters with contested boundaries? Threatening to try them as criminals, but housing and feeding them, treating them civily, and then, after sabre-rattling, looking wild-eyed, crazy, irrational, then ...
Negotiate their release. Peacefully. No shots fired. Oops world, the U.S. preemptive military strike has been preemptively attacked, with a peaceful negotiation and return of sailors; not one bullet fired; not one soldier killed.
Iran has gotten its propoganda machine ratcheted up first .. they are not for war, they are for negotiations between leaders of states. REPEAT ... they are for peaceful negotiated settlements. And it's damn hard for that to go away.
There are precedents in the middle east for this kind of conquest -- the bloodless kind. Consider the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh).
I find the Iranian strategy absolutely brilliant.
They called the shots; the timing; the order of battle; the negotiated settlement of that brief conflict. And regardless of world reaction, the opinion of the Iranian in the streets can only be, "We have done it! We have shown the world that we are for peace. We have held the high ground on all levels.
MOST ESPECIALLY, they have won the war at the politcal and moral levels. Iran now holds the moral high ground. They have proven their willingness to negotiate rather than fire bullets or drop bombs; a natoina that can act rationally in its own self-interest; a nation that can abide by rules.
In this country, we drum up the fever for wargasms by demonizing our enemies, carcituring them as the latest Hitler, or maybe we'll change that comparison, and make call them the new Saddam, and repeating over and over and over again how much of a threat they are to our security.
WELL ... I'm not sure how well the war propaganda infotainment factories are going to able to convince the U.S. public (the real client for war) of the evilness of Iran and its leaders. Besides, the U.S. government should have learned by now, you need to give the American people 15 years of material anxiety, disinformation, and historical revision in order to let their collective memories of the past (failed) war agitprop campaign receed down the memory hole.
The real problem for the cheney administration is that they don't understand the required scope of operations to wage an imperialist war against a nation of 26 million (70 million in Iran). They should have simply re-invaded Grenada, or Haiti. THOSE could have been sold to the American people as great victories.
But to invade and occupy sovereign peoples, with the best armed resistance in the history or the world ... well, the big lesson of the 20th century should have been the collapse of empires -- the British, the German, the Russian.
All the world over child
It's easy to see
People everywhere just got to be free.
And they will fight to the death to be so.
Iran has acted not only rationally, but with geo-political acumen rivaling that of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.
The proof is in the pudden-headed pudding. The 4th-rate decrepit war-mongerer and GOP spin shill, pudden head Victor Davis Hanson recently penned an opinion piece (Chicago Tribune) wherein he concludes that whatever Iran wants to do, the U.S. must not be baited into their trap and thus should do the opposite. And since, as per the Conventional Wisdom, Iran is irrational and wants war NOW, this is not the time to wage war. I'm not making this up. THESE are the conclusions of the Hoover Institute's leading historian.
Clear proof that Iran's "gambit" (pre-emptive propaganda strike) has absolutely fried the hard-wiring in the minds of the neocon think tanks. They do'nt know what to think. They are incapable of seeing Iran as a rational geo-political actor. Confusion has been sewn.
My prayers remain prayers for peace and for wisdom to the rulers guiding those nations capable of living peacefully upon the planet to solutions that will give peace a chance.
My other prayers are for my beloved country. Lord, grant that we may one day get the political leader we need to recognize that the only world leadership role we will ever again be able to assume is that of wise counsel, leading by the example of good governance and the highest standards of integrity. (Sooner rather than later ... for later may be too late)
