The Rollout

Lynne has done a nice job of pointing out the Iran rumors of late below. Here is another source of information .... and these are credible sources. But what about it?

As I've said before, the rhetoric has been ratched up before without attack. The uses of the rhetoric for diplomatic purposes are well known. Yet, Bush is entering his last year soon and I have a feeling he doesn't want to go out leaving Iran as a problem.

Bush will do anything to be "not Clinton", and the Bushies have always felt very strongly that Clinton left the mess in Iraq and North Korea for them to "clean up". Will Bush really leave office with the open question of Iran and nukulur weapons? My gut tells me no. I tend to think that we're going into the real deal with an massive airstrike occurring sometime before the 2008 election. Bush sees it as good leadership, good optics, and good politics. In his eyes, an attack will be a winner for a leader with absolutely nothing to lose*.

One of the sources for this story is a respected Afghanistan watcher, Barnett Rubin. Here's George Packers postscript to his post about the rollout:

Postscript: Barnett Rubin just called me. His source spoke with a neocon think-tanker who corroborated the story of the propaganda campaign and had this to say about it: “I am a Republican. I am a conservative. But I’m not a raging lunatic. This is lunatic.”

*(note, Bush doesn't care what anyone else has to lose, that's the nature of narcissism).