by CKR
We continue to have these periodic uproars about war with Iran. Today the airwaves and blogosphere seem to contain only a residual odor of the smoke and brimstone that Wolf Blitzer was exhaling earlier in the week.
Part of it is that we're all just a little spooky about George Bush's pugnacious words on the subject. Pugnacious is, of course his style, which he barely kept in check during the State of the Union message, pulling his arm back off the podium when it kept creeping up, Strangelove-style, so he could lean forward and jut his chin at us to tell us once more that we "have to understand" his point of view. (Thanks to Eric Martin for the Strangelove reference.)
Part of it is, too that Bush is making some serious accusations against the Iranians, possibly to cover his, er, actions when he decides to take them. That's Professor Foland's take.
My inclination is that there's nothing so strategic about it, although I certainly could be wrong.
Iran, for its part, chooses to fan the fires with claims of its burgeoning nuclear prowess, which Bill Broad and David Sanger, along with others, are beginning to question. As time goes on, I'm wondering more and more whether Iran's claims about their nuclear progress aren't about as accurate as George Bush's claims about Iran's evildoings. Both seem to contain a good deal of inflation. When Iran claimed it had enriched uranium, I don't recall any confirmations of the enrichment, no samples sent to analytical laboratories, just President Ahmadinejad's claim and those attractive greenish (a real uranium color) bottles.
I've been wondering, too, why these uproars come and go the way they do. My best theory at the moment is that there is a conflict within the Bush administration over Iran. It could be over whether to attack Iran at all, the timing of the attack, or something more arcane. We simply don't know. But most likely the hawkish words are coming from the remaining neocons in the administration, even when those words issue from Bush's mouth. There may be others in the administration (or possibly even the press) who ask what is behind those words. It turns out to be nothing more than the usual desire to have another splendid little war, to take the spotlight off the last one, or the continuing desire to bash Iran.
So the sword-rattlers slink away, Tony Snow blusters, and President Bush tells us how well the economy is doing.
The press could help us out on this by doing more checking on who is behind various leaks and who the president has been meeting with lately instead of reporting, say, the loud rumor that Iran might be behind the Karbala incident with a tiny little appendage that we don't know yet. And while it's good of the LA Times to tell us they don't know, it would be even better if they could do some more of that digging. They didn't the last time. We can't afford another Iraq in Iran.