President Bush’s proclamations that Iran is meddling in Iraq and will face severe but unnamed consequences if it continues to do so have become so common they have almost faded into the background of the national discourse. But this should grab your attention:
Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.
Dick Cheney has a solid record of using force judiciously and wisely. Surely everyone within the administration is listening to him, right?
Thankfully, no. According to the McClatchy report linked above, Secretary of State Condi Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates both object to expanding the war outside Iraq’s borders. In response, Cheney is calling on his friends at the think tanks and in the media to help him. Writes McClatchy: “The debate [in the administration] has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media… The Bush administration has launched what appears to be a coordinated campaign to pin more of Iraq’s security troubles on Iran.”
As it happens, the Post had an article yesterday about that “drumbeat of allegations.” It details how Bill Kristol, Michael Rubin, Norman Podhoretz, the Heritage Foundation, and others are making a military attack on Iran part of the Overton window — that is, part of the range of acceptable policy options.
Honestly, the best part of the 2008 election won’t be getting Bush out of office. It’ll be keeping the globe’s citizens safe from Dick Cheney. That man never should have had the most powerful military in the history of the world at his disposal.
