Is Cheney Really Shifting Targets?

For those just getting up, Bill Clinton appeared on some of the Sunday shows this morning. You might want to find his appearances on the web. This morning's must read, however, is Seymour Hersh's article in the New Yorker entitled Shifting Targets.

If you think Hillary Clinton and the Beltway Democrats didn't make a mistake by signing on to the Lieberman/Kyl Let's Bomb Iran Resolution, reading Hersh's article will change your mind. It is obvious that the Resolution was just part of the Bush/Cheney roll out of their shiny new war in Iran.

I can hear Hillary's excuse after the bombing starts. "We were merely authorizing the President to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Nobody ever told us that the Revolutionary Guard is part of the Iranian government. Nobody imagined that Bush/Cheney would consider the resolution an authorization to go after Iran." If she really believes that America has become a great colonial empire and stealing oil from the Middle East is what colonial empires are all about, she really ought to come right out and tell us. If that isn't what she believes she ought to bring her actions in line with her beliefs.

More after the break.

Hillary is nothing more than an enabler. Hersh confirms that the real driving force behind an Iranian attack is Dick Cheney. Oddly, if you believe Hersh, while the Israel, Britain, France and the US have focused on the Iranian nuclear program, Cheney is said to be pitching an attack to counter Iranian involvement in Iraq.

If he thinks the Iranians are going to be shocked and awed into submission it is probable that, as usual, he is badly mistaken. Hersh interviewed a former "State Department Advisor on Iran."

The adviser said that he had heard from a source in Iran that the Revolutionary Guards have been telling religious leaders that they can stand up to an American attack. “The Guards are claiming that they can infiltrate American security,” the adviser said. “They are bragging that they have spray-painted an American warship—to signal the Americans that they can get close to them.” (I was told by the former senior intelligence official that there was an unexplained incident, this spring, in which an American warship was spray-painted with a bull’s-eye while docked in Qatar, which may have been the source of the boasts.)

“Do you think those crazies in Tehran are going to say, ‘Uncle Sam is here! We’d better stand down’? ” the former senior intelligence official said. “The reality is an attack will make things ten times warmer.”

What does all this mean? That is hard to say. I guess, at the very least, "Bomb, bomb,bomb, bomb Iran" is a catchy jingle for the new product from Bushco that has apparently been endorsed by Hillary Clinton.