One of CWL's regular commenters posted this at "Why We Might Invade Iran." Sums up some of the horrifying possibilities.

 

Posted by unagidonon September 19, 2007, 4:20 pm

I have been hearing a lot of chatter in the news about Iran becoming the gravest threat to the world and I think that chances are far better than even that Bush is going to do a massive strike against them.

1. His big problem now is that the US has effectively changed sides in Iraq and the main US support seems to be with the Sunni. He thinks that hitting Iran will both weaken the Shiites and will reassure our Sunni client states.2. While a Democratic president is quite capable of nuking Iran too, he or she won't be doing it for the larger economic and political reasons that Bush wants to. In any case, Bush and his posse aren't running again, so in that regard they have nothing to lose.3. If you think about it, if the Adminstration is really and truly unilateral in their thinking, it makes sense to do it. It will change things real fast in the region and we will be locked down there for quite a while, since then the region will truly be destabilized.4. The neocons have consistently believed that one can effect a regime change by doing something stupid like this.5. One of our regional st ategic partners (rhymes with Schmisrael) [MOBS: I think we could just say Israel] has a government that would love to see us do it, especially since it would involve little direct risk to themselves.

 

UPDATE: And more here: IRAN: Retaliation for any Israeli Attack http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Israel.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190249402-22FbyUYQVCBQrpEVfsl6wA

 

Does anyone remember the threat/counter-threat, alliance, etc., outbreak of WWI. Well, okay we're all too young for that. But.....

 

UPDATE: At Salon and thanks to Pat Lang: more food for chewing over.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/19/iran/print.html

 

Margaret O’Brien Steinfels is a former editor of Commonweal. 

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