Hi geode00; Re the Hersh article, and the US egging the Israelis on.
Yes, the usual words for when you put a friend up to hostilities with another is "let's you and him fight".
By the way, did you notice how the article says that Rumsfeld no longer believes in air power alone and consequently doesn't seem to want to go into Iran? Let me pull out the paragraphs:
Donald Rumsfeld, who is one of the Bush Administration’s most outspoken, and powerful, officials, has said very little publicly about the crisis in Lebanon. His relative quiet, compared to his aggressive visibility in the run-up to the Iraq war, has prompted a debate in Washington about where he stands on the issue.
Some current and former intelligence officials who were interviewed for this article believe that Rumsfeld disagrees with Bush and Cheney about the American role in the war between Israel and Hezbollah. The U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said that “there was a feeling that Rumsfeld was jaded in his approach to the Israeli war.” He added, “Air power and the use of a few Special Forces had worked in Afghanistan, and he tried to do it again in Iraq. It was the same idea, but it didn’t work. He thought that Hezbollah was too dug in and the Israeli attack plan would not work, and the last thing he wanted was another war on his shift that would put the American forces in Iraq in greater jeopardy.”
A Western diplomat said that he understood that Rumsfeld did not know all the intricacies of the war plan. “He is angry and worried about his troops” in Iraq, the diplomat said. Rumsfeld served in the White House during the last year of the war in Vietnam, from which American troops withdrew in 1975, “and he did not want to see something like this having an impact in Iraq.” Rumsfeld’s concern, the diplomat added, was that an expansion of the war into Iran could put the American troops in Iraq at greater risk of attacks by pro-Iranian Shiite militias.
Just because they were stupid enough to go into Iraq doesn't mean that they're stupid enough to go into Iran. War is man's most effective teacher. If in late 2002 and early 2003 the Democrats had made more warnings about how Iraq was going to turn into a guerilla war I'd have more respect for their wisdom. Instead, the warnings I heard were about non existent WMDs being used against US troops, a general conflagration in the ME, and about Bush planning on driving the price of oil too low.
-- Carl |
