Iran just a distraction factor for the White House?
Jurassic Pork reaches behind the firewall and produces the latest Frank Rich op-ed and it's an especially good one. Rich offers a comforting theory on why the Bush administration would be dishing out such transparently false propaganda on Iran. He traces the origins of the current alarmist press releases and points out that dressing up old news as "urgent new developments" is a time tested distraction strategy at the White House.
We know what Mr. Bush wants to distract us from this time: Congressional votes against his war policy, the Libby trial, the Pentagon inspector general’s report deploring Douglas Feith’s fictional prewar intelligence, and the new and dire National Intelligence Estimate saying that America is sending troops into the cross-fire of a multifaceted sectarian cataclysm.I'm willing to entertain that theory. It beats the hell out of staying up nights worrying that Bush finally has gone completely bonkers and is just about to pull the nuclear trigger.
That same intelligence estimate also says that Iran is “not likely to be a major driver of violence” in Iraq, but no matter. If the president can now whip up a Feith-style smoke screen of innuendo to imply that Iran is the root of all our woes in the war — and give “the enemy” a single recognizable face (Ahmadinejad as the new Saddam) — then, ipso facto, he is not guilty of sending troops into the middle of a shadowy Sunni-Shiite bloodbath after all.
posted by Libby Spencer at 5:10 PM
2 Comments:
I don't know if the guy's opinion is that it's all a bluff with Iran; the piece seems to be a mockery of the latest spin. Yes, the neocons are having trouble at home with domestic issues, but that united front they were famous for was just that - a front that was bound to collapse at some point anyway.
As far as their foreign adventures go, what seems to be a chaotic clusterfuck to us is going very well indeed for them. That they make a mess of peddling the propaganda doesn't make any difference. I think to an insider like Rich the domestic squabbles he's surrounded by seem to mean much more than in reality.
The fascists will never let their home turf troubles affect their foreign enterprises. They have an agenda that's written in granite, and Iran will be crushed in the all out drive to assume control of all the resources of the region.
Sorry Libby, Rich's "less apocalyptic motive" doesn't cut it with me.
And I don't trust a so called liberal who puts out a priori statements like "Iran is an unquestionable menace with an Israel-hating fanatic as its president."
I had a little bit of problem with that line about Iran too although I do think it's a potential menace but then again, so is every ME country.
And I don't buy the theory completely either Nolo, but I do find it somewhat comforting.
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