More Adventures in Asia Minor

Without a foothold in the halls of power, at least we have Seymour Hersh to raise alarm bells about who's next on the Axis of Evil takedown list: Iran. The article in this week's New Yorker suggests that high-level officials are staying out of the European nonproliferation talks with Iran, hoping they will fail so the military can begin to march to Tehran. And guess what? We're going to be greeted as liberators over there too!

The government consultant told me that the hawks in the Pentagon, in private discussions, have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership. "Within the soul of Iran there is a struggle between secular nationalists and reformers, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the fundamentalist Islamic movement," the consultant told me. "The minute the aura of invincibility which the mullahs enjoy is shattered, and with it the ability to hoodwink the West, the Iranian regime will collapse"--like the former Communist regimes in Romania, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz share that belief, he said.

We know how well a limited attack worked last time. As I've discussed before, limiting the attack is a strategic tactic, a false hope by the political arm of the Administration to minimize the effect on our soliders, increase public support, and allow for multiple pre-emptive attacks at once. "Light and lean" can handle many wars on all fronts (and when I say handle, I mean "not handle at all"). And it demeans how effective our enemies can be by running in there with pitifully small forces to do the job. Respect for the enemy is a fundamental tenet of war. We don't even believe our enemies are strong enough to beat themselves.

But the more terrifying prospect that Hersh brings up in his article is the absence of any check on the power of the Pentagon:

George W. Bush’s reëlection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities’ strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control—against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism—during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as “facilitators” of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way.

The hubris of this government is insane. After totally botching the War in Iraq, the President now places unparalleled power in the hands of the very group most responsible for the botching. And Bush is using the 51% "mandate" as proof of his righteousness; he is vindicated on Iraq, because, well, you re-elected me. The myopia of that statement is, quite frankly, frightening. He's gone from an "era of responsibility" (2000 Inauguration) to an "accountability moment" (2004 Election)... now that's some shrinkage in the size of government right there. An era to a moment in just four years.

By the way, the Administration response to the Hersh article has ranged from flat denial to attacking Hersh and his sources to saying "we plan for a lot of contingencies." Classic.