George Bush, speaking before yet another military audience, yesterday delivered what might actually be the most disturbing speech of his presidency, in which he issued more overt war threats than ever before towards Iran
Bush's August 28th speech was bellicose in the extreme, and bodes ill. Greenwald's analysis of the falsehoods in it are not "rocket science", so one must question why there hasn't been much analysis of the speech in the mainstream media - either of it's veracity or of it's implications. Why is there no alarm?
Certainly Bush is emotionally capable of ordering an attack, and has convinced himself that this is a viable option. He's acting lately like a wounded animal - lashing out in his death throws. (In that sense "the insurgency" really is in it's last throws.)
Circumstances today are radically different from when Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. To begin with, his approval numbers have plummeted from above 90% to below 30% . Think about that. For every 3 Americans who support him today - seven Americans don't. Approval for continuing the Iraq war is even less. Since the invasion the nation has cottoned on to his lies about weapons of mass destruction, and the process by which the intelligence was distorted and the press was manipulated. The mainstream press has publicly apologized for being so easily duped and made complicit. Not to say that the press won't be duped and manipulated again - they will, and they are. But remember how many months it took to whip up public support for the invasion of Iraq. Support for invading Iran is weak today, and that won't change in the next couple of weeks.
Of course, lack of public support would not stop Bush from attacking Iran.
And Congress will not stop an attack on Iran.
There is a small, but real possibility that some generals might block an attack. Certainly there's dissention in their ranks. General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is expected to advise Bush to cut troops in Iraq by half within the coming year, on grounds that the military is in danger of coming apart at the seams:
Also, he and General Petraeus will issue separate, contradictory reports assessing the surge.
Bush might very well launch an attack. But if he does, he will rip open the ideological divide in our country so wide that it will never be closed. And the neoConservatives will come out on the very short end of that political conflict. It might even threaten the continued existence of the Republican Party. Who knows how many innocents in Iran would die, or how much blood would be on our hands. And the terrorist blowback upon us would be terrible for generations to come. But perhaps that is the only means by which this fundamentalist, neoConservative insurgency - which literally threatens all life on earth - can be ended.
