Bush still pushing for Iran strike

Libby Spencer

This story worries me and it's not because I believe that Iran is training EFP makers. I don't. At least I don't think the Iranian government is necessarily involved. Cernig at Newshog has already thoroughly debunked that notion. He notes well that all the EFP factories have been found in Iraq and the explosive devices have been used for years by the IRA in Ireland. It's not like the technology is so new.

What worries me is that it signals Bush is still hot for a military strike against Tehran and instead of trying to figure out how to end the war we're already in, he's angling for ways to sell expansion to a new front. Yesterday, my other colleague at Newshog, Fester, who is knowledgeable on military strategy, suggested as a practical matter, it couldn't happen. He makes a good argument.

So the combination of the US not deploying a sufficient number of strike assets in the northern Arabian Sea/Persian Gulf area, massive horizontal escalation vulnerability, economic vulnerability and the lack of strategic flexibility strongly dictates, in my mind, against any possible US strike on Iran in the next twenty months.

Unfortunately, we're talking about a man who is so lost in his fantasy of being a mighty war President that I won't breathe easy until he's safely out of office. Until then, no matter how insanely impractical, as the saying goes, all options are still on Bush's table.