Planning An Iran Attack

War and rumors of war ... oh excuse me, I was in a little End-Times funk. Could have been put there by The Telegraph's article on Pentagon planning for strikes against Iranian nuclear capability.

The strikes, which almost certainly are a part of Pentagon contingency planning, will be of the swift and remote sort, not Iraq II. They are seen as a last resort against Ahmadinajad getting the bomb, and we certainly need a plan for such a scenario.

So what's the Left got to say about the prospects of war over Iranian nukes?

The Left Coaster blames it on petro-economics.

Mahablog gets a bit paranoid, as is her anti-Bush wont:

The Bushies, for whom every frustration becomes a personal vendetta, would pot-roast their own babies before they’d do anything to help the IAEA and ElBaradei.

On the other hand, Karl may figure he could use Iran to do to the 2006 elections what he accomplished with Iraq in the 2002 elections. The Republican Noise machine will spew out visions of mushroom clouds hovering over American cities, and the Dems will fail to put up a cohesive challenge. Hmmm. Sounds like a plan.

World War III, anyone?

Unanswered is whether Ahmadinijad, left to his own loonie devices, won't cause World War III all by himself.

Kos sees nothing but politics:

The [Telegraph] article cites McCain (and identifies him as the front-runner for the GOP in 2008) as saying: ""There is only one thing worse than the United States exercising a military option and that is a nuclear-armed Iran." And then ... ugh ... states that Lieberman makes the same case.

And Liberty Street blames the whole thing on the Iraq invasion.

The invasion of Iraq has destabilized not just Iraq but that entire region; and it has empowered Iran and given it an influence it never would have had if Bush and Cheney and Rice and Wolfowitz had listened when European leaders and much of the rest of the world said Saddam Hussein had no desire, inclination, or plans to attack the U.S. -- much less the capability to do so -- and that his military ambitions could be easily managed by simply continuing inspections and targeted sanctions.

If you can figure out the logic of why it would be better to have two bloodthirsty, expansionist, WMD regimes instead of one, you deserve a prize.

Related Tags: Iran, Nukes, Ahmadinijad, Iraq, WMDs, Telegraph, Bush, Leftyblogs
hat-tip: memeorandum